New work: The Book of Shadows: audi, pontus/ audi, tellus

(means "hear o sea, hear o earth")

62 x 91 cm, acrylic mixed media on Hanji with wild herbs/grasses
includes images of crinoid fossils

The title is from Sequentia's cd, Vox Iberica 2, Codex Las Huelgas This particular piece has a lot of women's voice drones in it and I like the text of the work. It seems appropriate for facing the realities of climate change.

audi, pontus Hear, O sea
audi, tellus, hear, O earth
audi maris magni limbus hear, O great earth-girdle of the ocean;
audi homo hear O man
audi omne quod vivit sub sole hear all that lives beneath the sun.
prope est, veniet he is near, he will come
Ecce iam dies est See the day is already here
dies illa, dies invisa, dies amara that day, that hated day that bitter day
qua celum fugiet when the heavens will flee
sol erubescet the sun blush
luna fugabitur the moon be put to flight
sider super terram cadent the stars fall to earth
Heu, miser, heu miser Alas O wretched
heu, cur, homo ineptam alas O man, why
sequeris leticiam do you pursue false happiness?

I've incorporated some figures from that Burgos painting that Margriet loved so much (it's on the cover of the cd booklet) of the women mourning/singing. Also there are some sea fossils. It appears disparate. I think the weaving together of the sea and earth, ancient objects, mourning and a call to contemplate our complicity in a cataclysmic change in the world operate in this work and in the musical text.