MOONDANCE
Henry Moore said “To be an artist is to believe in life.”
When I began sketching Moondance there were two quotes I wrote on my paper, one was the above by Moore and the other was by J.M. Barrie, which reads:
“The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”
If you know my poetry or have had conversations with me, you know I am obsessed with winged creatures. The idea of wings conjures up the ‘enchanted’ world, the 'dreamland’ where imagination blends with reality. This is the world I have come to love since I was a child, blending real world with magic.
As humans we long to defy gravity. We carry in our hearts an ancient longing to have wings, to be able to soar like the birds we watch in an open sky, the near perfect metaphor for freedom.
The part about faith in the quote by J.M Barrie is profound and meaningful. Whenever I begin to sketch for a sculpture, I am mostly trying to find my faith and my conviction. I am trying to find wings to take me into another world and discover a three-dimensional form of my vision.
The idea of balancing emotions and love with another human can be a bit of a see saw. The alternating up-and-down or backward-and-forward movement and always trying keep the relationship equitable is impossible without wings. The wings of humans may be invisible to the naked eye but if we look intuitively, we can catch a glimpse of feathers and pinion. Humans are equipped with wings of equilibrium. This counterbalance device is always correcting the paradoxical experiences of love’s gravity and levity.
Moondance is a visual definition of the shared human experience of being in love, while it liberates us from earthly constraints it also anchors us to the profound aspects of our being.
This is ‘Moondance’, forged from fire _ a visual poem.
MOONDANCE / TABLE TOP
BRONZE 32"x13'x 24"/ EDITION of 18
art © Gesso Cocteau
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Cricket
June 04, 2024
Moondance is so beautifully balanced. This piece portrays groundedness and flight, balance and paradox in romantic (and possibly all) relationships. Gesso’s written response to her masterfully elegant bronze piece reminds me that in order to have equitable realtionships, we need to be ourselves fully. May we spread our wings. Allow yourself your birthright… for Mother Earth to hold you through your beloveds and for your spirit to expand in the field of love.