“Cornered” Again

Meet “Cornered.” I just did. The magic in certain woods reveals itself in the luminescence which emerges under the finish brush. I had to stop sculpting and apply the oil finish to see how the colors and grains were going to react. To my shock, her expression changed. When I started, I knew she felt frustrated, choking on her impossible reality, but with furrowed brow, she hadn’t yet given into despair. Her stare, wide open. Tonight, as the oil soaked into her skin, I instead saw her green eyes wrestling with the illogic of it all.

The sexes are equal, opposite, action, reaction, at rest, in motion, augmenting, and complimentary. We ARE different, but demean at your peril. That goes for any difference, in any human, by design. Nature is endlessly trying on new traits not simply looking for the fittest in the current environment, but for the next puzzle piece which adds to the whole. Humans are not singularities alone, but by necessity, contributors to society. To believe otherwise is frankly myopic, low-lidded, heavy-browed, thick-headed, well, need I describe further? And need I state that these unevolved cretins are soul-eatingly difficult to reason with? – But not impossible.

“Impossible” is a human construct created to enslave the mind. For anyone who has lived any length of time (and/or studied quantum physics), most of us know any “thing” can – and will – happen at some point in time. Therefore, “impossible” may seem improbable, or deniable (“Oh, God, Oh, God, say it ain’t so”), or ignorable (“not in my lifetime”) but the truth is, no amount of hoping will change the inevitable. Impossible just…isn’t, and there-in lies the rub.

“Impossible” is permission to give up, to look no further. It’s shrugging off possible as a cheat to pay no mind to the man behind the curtain. It’s a false sense of safety, or unchangeability, or worse, despair which stops us from questioning. And when faced with an impossible situation as Cornered is, her body pressed so far into a corner, bound on two sides and trapped by the very foundation on which she stands such that she’s taken on the shape of her confines, she searches for anything to relieve the illogical demands on a woman, the absurd dismissal of her worth, her mind, her talent, and her will, and just plain stupidity of it all.

“Impossible” is the final stage of defeat if and only if you lack logic. Yes, having a logical mind makes the false reality of “impossible” painfully dissonant, our heart broken in half, our skin on fire, our eyes stinging, our hands digging through our hair, pulling, tearing, and our fingers clawing at the migraine splitting our head, but logic also saves us because a woman knows: nothing is impossible.

But what if? What if impossible is possible? What if more protections are scuttled, more laws passed, more double speak campaigns waged, more rights lost? “Impossible’s” unreality can become real as it has in so many societies, in so many countries, in so many histories. “Cornered” knows this and is cornered by this knowledge, and so she keeps her eyes open, searching for a crack, an opportunity, a possibility because the alternative is unthinkable.

I’m getting ready to submit to a small show here in my adopted land, okay, state, but art is a world in which contacts are everything. Still, I’d like to get started, or start over, again, as it were. I’m not nervous. Somehow, I don’t feel like I’m on trial here when all of human decency is being challenged. Still, it’s exciting. I’ll keep you posted. It’ll be fun to see if one of the three women in my “Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts” protest series are accepted. If you missed them, look back in the blogs for “Chipped Away” and “Sucker Punched.” I have some new photos coming soon. Enjoy the magic of the finish brush!