01/06/2023
Epiphany, New York, Jan. 6th 2018, reclaimed wood joists, plaster statuette, 22″W x 30″H (55×75 cm)
“A newborn baby Jesus with arms stretched out wider then their typical nativity gesture, four wood boards and a cloth, remnants of Bethlehem’s manger, are rotated upword from the horiginal horizontal plane and hung vertically on the wall: a mystical and surreal foreview, a pre-vesion of the fate of Christ, the crucifixtion. This sculpture is a manifestation (Epiphany) of life and death’s mistery, the uncertain jurney from birth to death through the sea of life, referencing T.S. Eliot 1927 poem Journey of the Magi: “… were we led all that way for Birth or Death? ….”
“…I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. …”
(See full text of poem below)
A meditation in itself, this art piece is also a crude reminder of the tragic human conditions that too many children are dealing with!
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Represented by TMSW, Tanya Sridaromont Wells
The Journey Of The Magi by T.S. Eliot
“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down
This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”
