the amputation of the soul

On September 29, 2008 / By maggi dawn / Reply

George Orwell, observing the loss of religious faith in Europe (which he had applauded), remarked:

For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately there had been a little mistake. The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire. … It appears that amputation of the soul isn't just a simple surgical job, like having your appendix out. The wound has a tendency to go septic.

from Philip Yancey, On the Grand Canyon Bus

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No Responses to “the amputation of the soul”

Comments

  2. Paul Fromont
    On September 7, 2008 at 12:15 am

    That’s lovely Maggi. It would go very very well in our house [winking]… The multi-talented Maggi Dawn. Well done.

  3. Dave Paisley
    On September 7, 2008 at 5:13 am

    Hmmm, maybe an aeroplane somewhere on there would help? ;)

  4. Katherine
    On September 9, 2008 at 10:44 am

    it’s interesting the way things sometimes take their own course and don’t end up the way you originally thought. I like Sylvia Plath’s way of looking at it – Ted Hughes said of her, ‘Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn’t get a table out of her material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy’.

  5. Maggi
    On September 9, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    Katherine, my writing often goes the same way… :) but i tend to think that when writing starts to “write itself” you should go with the flow, as that’s usually where the life is. Forced writing, like forced painting, might be a good exercise, but it’s rarely good art

  6. Mike R
    On September 14, 2008 at 8:44 pm

    I’ve been thinking about this painting a lot.
    I use those colours myself quite frequently, as there are lots of things you can do both with the contrast and by mixing them together.
    The problem I find is that they can be almost too “electric”-looking, almost symthetic, and it’s a challenge to get them to bounce off each other naturally.
    It’s unfotunate that introducing a geomteric shape of any sort, least of all a cross of any description is going to illicit comments from religious folk.
    I use cigarettes in my work, and people go: “Oh, that’s very Damian Hirst.” It’s like some things have become so hackneyed that’s its impossible to use them for yourself.
    Still, these are the sorts of things that you find coming out when you work through something as you have done here.
    Looks great!

  7. Maggi
    On September 14, 2008 at 10:26 pm

    mmm, thanks all for your enthusiasm. Mike, you’re right about the intensity of the two colours – they are so wonderful together and so hard to marry up in tone as well as colour. Still, a fun experiment.
    I couldnt’ do art with cigarettes – I’d be tempted to smoke them :)

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