Volume 1. Chapter 22. Unity

Under your skin

If a bone protrudes from your self portrait so much the better. An artist is more than a handsome face.

Relationship

Intimacy and distance characterize the race up the mountainside.

Fashion

We are not focused on appearances; however, every line, color, and texture must contribute to an effortless depiction of the lady’s inmost soul.

Relic

The brutal dictator slept with the gruesome finger of Saint Terese, they say. We take it from its gilded box like a dog that digs up the grave of a saint.

Broken toy

We may need to take the toy apart so that we can fix it. The mending job must not destroy what you love about it, but be careful to restore your ability to believe in it.

Calligram

It gives you an idea, like any work of art, part symbol, part image, the signature of a meaning.

Island woman

You can’t see her all at once but she has left signatures to suggest her living presence like the curling of her finger or the vapor of her exhalation. A line of shadow on a hill could be the slit of her closed eye.

Under its cloak

The monster is mostly empty inside. Its heart swings like a pendulum, first fierce, then afraid.

Body parts

We construct each other like constellations, drawing our own lines from point to point. Ligaments and tendons seem to replace air that blows around body parts.

Witches

Witches fill your view like branches in a forest. You try to leave one, but run into another. Their familiars are strange but ever present like black cats that trip you in the dark.

Abstract playground

The playground isn’t chaotic; it just has its own rules. A logic underlies appearances that makes it all real. It takes a high vantage point, where each toy, swing set, and child appear to be made of the same material, to see how everything belongs to the same jigsaw puzzle.