Jane Fox writes articles on health, art, sculpture; musical theatre, opera and poetry.
‘Bourgeois: A view from the bottom of the well’.
This work is an exploration of Louise Bourgeois’ three towers, ‘I do, I undo and I redo’; and the ‘Red Rooms’ from a psychological perspective
In 1875-6 Rodin made his first major work, The Age Of Bronze (spring’s awakening) which signalled a new beginning in art that no longer depended upon the primacy of subject matter, or narration, or mimesis. This visual experience derives from a concept in art that is no longer, “…beholden to specific anecdotal representation: a concept of art that has freed itself and is thus no longer clutching at the centuries old Aristotelian principle of mimesis, of imitating nature as truthfully and faithfully as possible.” 7. (Crone and Schaesberg in Louise Bourgeois The Secrets of the Cells). He was entrusting it entirely to the genuinely artistic realms of free creative imagination. The developed concept of the fragment in Rodin’s work allows us to conjure up disjointed narratives and complete them with meaningful allusions. Confronted with a fragment such as Rodin’s La Pensee of the mid 1880’s the viewer is challenged to make his own independent, intuitive contribution to the dialogue with the artwork. Crone describes this process by which the viewer “…is inspired to abandon value judgements and to sound out for himself the possible ideas and multiplicities of meaning in a given work” (Crone et al) 8. Free of the detail of figurative sculpture, the fragment, by virtue of its succinctness gives a voice to something greater than itself. Such fragmentary sculptures as Meditation Sans Bras (The Inner Voice) and Torso provide insights into the energies and strengths that direct and determine human behaviour vis-à-vis the human being.
Thread or yarn is an ancient metaphor for the pattern of our lives, “…the thin,breakable thread in the child’s room reveals the unfinished process of creative construction, a loosely-structured world of possibilities” (Crone, et, al) 22. The fragile vulnerability of thread with its perpetual threat of breaking, snagging, knotting, distracted and enmeshed in a tangled web can also contain possibility of a freeing positive flowing of the thread.
Royal College of Art dissertation – distinction 2000-1
‘Waiting’ – a review of the poem by John Evans
This poem is a symphony of words, tones and colours. “In a moment vast landscape…”. A language poem. A dance with words. Words being used as language rather than rhetoric. Words for words sake. Art for arts sake. Part chant, part spell and incantation, the natural imagery drawing language back to it’s more primitive and visceral origins. “Marbled stained mud grades curtained chomping bones tendons…”. You don’t need to “get it”. The poem drifts in and out of meaning; that poetic space between sense and non sense where true thought and emotion exist without constraint. New syntactic relationships emerge. Sometimes the combinations of unexpected words create a sensation of newly created, forever permutating sense, “squeaked heart ravaged like an old rag”. The writer pays careful attention to the musical qualities of the poem – the rhythmic weight, the alliterative connections, the sound, tone and texture. A fragmented narrative appears here and there, somewhere just under the surface, “Still here Still Waking”, until, at the last gasp a voice emerges for a moment, “You’ve lost And freed me / To love / Continue”. Inventive, challenging and very well written, another worthy winner
Waiting was awarded third prize in The Welsh Poetry Competition – 2010
Waiting is published in The Welsh Poetry Competition; The first five years 2007-2011. An anthology of winners’ poems over the five year period, ISBN 978-1-4477-3232-7