John Singer Sargent

I'm not an incredibly arty person. I like art and I enjoy going to exhibitions but it's not very often that I fall completely in love with an artist's work. John Singer Sargent is one of the few exceptions. He was born in 1856 and in his lifetime created around 900 oil paintings and over 2000 water colours (according to wikipedia). I can't describe exactly what it is that I find so wonderful about his paintings, like I said I'm not a very arty person. All I know is that they are all stunning - the colours, the softness, their ability to tell a story. I feel like I can easily transport myself into the painting and hear the sounds and the atmosphere of that day.

Happy Birthday

Today is Morrissey's birthday so I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about another hero in my life. I first got into Morrissey and The Smiths when I was around 15. I can't really remember exactly why or how I started listening to The Smiths but I remember the effect that their music had on me. It sounds like one of those stupid cliched lines "they're music changed my life" but when it comes to The Smiths, in many ways it really did. When I first really got into them was at the time when my depression was at its worst. I attached my own meaning to Morrissey's beautiful lyrics and found that almost every song was heart-wrenching and eye-opening. For some reason, the thought that someone else had felt a similar pain to what I was feeling was comforting for me. Now, whenever I listen to Morrissey singing, every song has some form of emotional attachment for me. I can ignore all his flaws just for that incredible nostalgic euphoria that I feel at the sound of his voice.

Mexican Soldier by Frederic Remington, 1888

The Clearing

We went there together,
you took my hand and brushed it through the pine leaves,
which formed perfect mounds like fallen snow at our sides.
You laughed at me flitting back and forth among the branches, a hummingbird in search of pollen.
You rose and performed your own enchantment, twisting through the trees.
I should've joined your sombre dance, we would have been unstoppable.

I went back there alone today,
sat among the piles of broken branches
I tried to feel that same coating
but found their thorn edges
digging into me instead.
A single drop of blood fell from my finger to the clearing;
Stains among the weeds.
You laughter is still ringing here
among this haunted silence.

Moon River - Morrissey

"He felt as though he were wandering in the forests of the sea bottom, lost in a monstrous world where he himself was the monster. He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable." 
George Orwell, 1984

My Inspiration

Sylvia Plath, I don't think I could start to describe how much of a hero she is to me.

I'm currently reading 'The Journals of Sylvia Plath' and I keep finding myself crying over it just because her thoughts are so beautiful and full of meaning. I find that she can write a sentence which describes perfectly something that I have felt or thought previously but would never have been able to put into words. Even better than that, she has this ability to describe something that I have never felt or thought about in a manner that makes me feel as if I have and as if the thought were mine. She can write about the simplest of things and still make it seem incredibly significant and meaningful.

“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. You leave the same impression  of something beautiful, but annihilating.”   - Sylvia Plath