Blog
You, the Birds, and I
You, the Birds, and I You had written ____ I remember the words like music falling upon my skin. You said you knew me, ___and the poems I wrote for you were markers like leaves in the wind showing us the movement of our lust. I perceived you as if you were with me in the garden laying next to me between night and the earth. The moon’s sojourn had begun and we were part of that journey. Who could say if this was a dream or real? And I would unfold my body into yours, where I belong beneath the hands of your words, conducting my emotions. Rising and falling watching the stars knowing we are timeless coherent and open. I am thinking ____ you the birds and I beneath the darkened midnight sky. Night ____ night. © Gesso Cocteau “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” ― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Beyond The Mystery
I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” I have often thought that mystery is at the heart of creativity. When we let go of process and we can fall into the stream of creating we express the curiosity of mystery. For me, the act of sculpting carries a sacred resonance. I become the clay and the tools as my hands decipher dreams and metaphors. I become the symbols that I find on the bark of trees or swirling in the desert sands. I feed my clay my ideas and my thoughts, I linger in the ethers of an enigma, losing myself and finding myself ____ sculpting an elastic reality. It takes a certain chaos to create, and the mystery is what is constantly unraveling before us. It spills out into our consciousness in frighteningly beautiful ways. It leads you to your soul. It is pain and pleasure, trouble and desire, disappointment and surprise. It is the amalgam of our sensory reactions that is necessary to open our eyes to what is possible. It is not a coincidence that artists display a tendency to love and to demonstrate passion beyond the ordinary. Art becomes the idea that we are beyond the swarm, beyond the everyday details of life. We want to take the viewer or the reader or the listener on an adventure. Travelling through our creations, we offer wings to the viewer, inviting them to soar beyond the confines of ordinary perception and into the vast expanse of imagination. It takes courage to create, to tell your own personal truth, to be honest with yourself. It is the purity of truth that takes us into the deepest parts of ourselves. Truth has a life of its own. In this pursuit of truth, we are led to the deepest recesses of our being, where the purity of authenticity ignites a transformative journey. The senses of your soul will take you to new heights if you allow your preconceptions to dissipate. Tell the truth, shame the devil and never look back. As artists, we are perpetual seekers of the ineffable, forever entwined with the allure of mystery, passion, and magic. We are drawn to the interplay of light and shadow, the juxtaposition of feathers and stones, the boundless expanse of sky meeting earth. In the words of Vincent van Gogh, "I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?" Let us continue to nourish our creative spirits with the sustenance of mystery, passion, truth, and boundless imagination. And if you are not finding what you are looking for, maybe put your wings on backwards and see where they take you ____ they might just take you somewhere new. R.I.P. Micha von Doring © Gesso Cocteau
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 For Carl ___ because your love inspires me to dream. art © Gesso Cocteau Because the idea of 'MOONDANCE' came to me in a dream of the Moon and Bella _
Secrets Between Our Shadows and Our Souls
Secrets Between Our Shadows and Our Souls Surrounded by myself and the tall summer’s grass I lie still ____ and alone listening to the songs of the earth. I am crawling through the underbrush of what use to be us ____ and even though you are gone the flowers remain. I wanted more, I always want more my appetite exceeds my frame and I spill out into the visible world. You knew I was insatiable you tried to temper me you were honest and kind and as your friend said ‘you were always ‘present’ ____ but I was afraid, and when you asked me what I believed in I turned away. ( I believe ‘we have played along side millions of lovers’) Perhaps we were, in some past life mythological lovers ____ I think sometimes we ask too much of one another. ____ and so what if love dies over and over again. (age after age the words of the poet fall from the past into the future, an eternal song of desire fueled by the ‘perfect moment’. For now _____ my heart sings to the poppies as they cast their shadows upon my spine ____ I call out to you____ you see me in this dream: I ask you to return my heart to my body so that I might feel again. (God it is so humbling to be alive and sometimes I am so afraid my heart will break into a thousand pieces.) In this fragmented dream you whisper to me ____ through the fields and the forest kissing my rough hands: ____the hands made strong by bronze, by pencil and by ink. (My body stretches out to reach you extended into this landscape ____ forever.) Is all of this life a magical illusion? When my eyes are closed I feel you making love to me but then ____ the memories shift and I am moving slowly in my garden envisioning human suffering trying to remember your touch. Maybe it is the poetry that saves me, ____ or perhaps the sun, this field, the forest or the moon. For now I allow myself to feel the beauty of pain ____ to speak truth and to taste the flowers that seep into my veins. I still love you you made me feel alive ____ and the lord of darkness reminded me that nothing can hurt me if I let go of everything that gives me pleasure. You gave me breath honesty and love but I am not certain of spellbound hearts and everything is so temporary ____ We are all in movement on our way to the unknown. (Love is the ‘why’ of life.) I lost you, now I love another ____ the one who gives fire to my soul, but still I crawl through the fields at night beneath the goddess of love and silently I crave you. These are the secrets between our shadows and our souls. © Gesso Cocteau
Wildness
About My Video 'Wildness' on Gesso Cocteau YouTube Gesso Cocteau YouTube Channel This is a celebration of wildness, where the primal meets the celestial, and where the untamed spirit of leopards and the boundless freedom of crows inspire us to live with daring sensuality. Leopards ladies and crows converge to weave a tale of untamed beauty, fearlessness and unbridled spirit. In this visual odyssey, these magnificent creatures symbolize the wildness within women – feral and untamed, this enchanted land that embraces passion, sensuality, and an unyielding connection to our precious Earth. This is a celebration of the uncultivated, where the primal meets the sublime, and where the fierce spirit of leopards and the boundless freedom of crows inspire us to live daringly and passionately. This is the raw, sensual force that pulsates with undomesticated and tameless courage. The leopard, a manifestation of primal power, prowls with a predatory elegance, embodying the fierce and passionate nature that pulses through the veins of existence. Meanwhile, the crow, dark-winged and mysterious, becomes the harbinger of secrets and transformation, a symbol of the enigmatic depths of the human spirit. Ladies, both graceful and wild, entwine with these symbolic creatures in a subversive dance, birthing a clan that defies convention and societal norms. This is a celebration, a rebellious chorus that echoes the courage of the wild, inviting the audacity to be different, to embrace the untamed within. The symbolism of leopards and crows intertwines with the human experience, creating a discordant yet harmonious anthem that resonates with the primal and the mysterious. Stay wild and untamed;
Fragments
Fragments Where the darkness kisses the light and the light begs for forgiveness, where the split in time allows the shade of this shadow to sleep within his arms. Where once I lost sight of the beauty of wildness and our unharnessed rapture. Where I dreamt we were children and the wink of your eye became a door to our lives. Where I lost you and you would not return when I asked you why you whispered to me, “the void is where we find one another.” When the emptiness echoed with illuminated sight I saw fragments of myself. I became a witness to the rising of our lust. you remember now____don’t you? © Gesso Cocteau From 'STRANDED HEARTS' An Anthology Of Love Poetry Art by Pete Berg for 'STRANDED HEARTS' An Anthology Of Love Poetry
'STRANDED HEARTS' HAS ARRIVED'
A poet can only give her heart away once, the rest is observation. Poets are right to assume that love is eternal, and in a world of temporary things love is the immortal human experience. This is the poetry that sleeps between our love. May we always be bruised by beauty and touched by angels, but may we also be aware of our demons and our shadows, for the heart can only love in truth and these are the ingredients of the human condition.
STRANDED HEARTS
SOON TO BE RELEASED - STRANDED HEARTS An Anthology of Love Poetry Written by Gesso Cocteau Illustrated by Pete Berg "Now I understand the secret of redemption, I will never forget you. We are forever stranded hearts _____."
The Way it Felt
It is the way the beginning of winter felt,