Saints Preserve Us!

So I made some new Citra Solv pages to play with this week.  As I looked through the transformed papers there were several photographs that  caught my eye which  had been featured in an article about Europe's "Wild Men."  According to the  article's author,  Rachel Hartigan Shea, "Men...don costumes that hide their faces and conceal their true forms.  Then they take to the streets, where their disguises allow them to cross the line between human and animal, real and spiritual, civilization and wilderness, death and rebirth.  A man assumes a dual personality...He becomes something mysterious."  

For me, working with Citra Solv pages is all about mystery and seeing...seeing what is left on the page once the Citra Solv works its magic...seeing shapes and blobs and colors...faint images that hint at what could be...what can be developed...or transformed...into something new.  It occurred to me that these "Wild Men" (well, what was left of them!) looked like saints; so now I'm in the process of creating a series  called "Saints Preserve Us!"   I'm having fun with it...taking a lot of liberty...and basically making them up as I go.  I'm still  waiting for these saints to tell me their names, but as you can see, they already have their own distinct personalities...much like the "Wild Men" from whence they came. 

"Saints Preserve Us!" #1 (Stacy Wills, 2014)

Citra Solv, alcohol inks on National Geographic page

+sacred altering

"Saints Preserve Us!" #2 (Stacy Wills, 2014)

Citra Solv, alcohol inks on National Geographic page

+sacred altering

The Tree's Prayer - a poem by George MacDonald

  "Tree of the Field" (Stacy Wills, 2014)

alcohol ink on ceramic tile, 6" x 6"

The Tree's Prayer

Alas! 'tis cold and dark;

The wind all night has sung a wintry tune;

Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon

Has beat against my bark.

Oh! when will it be spring?

The sap moves not within my withered veins;

Through all my frozen roots creep numbing pains,

That they can hardly cling.

The sun shone out last morn;

I felt the warmth through every fibre float;

I thought I heard a thrush's piping note,

Of hope and sadness born.

Then came the sea-cloud driven;

The tempest hissed through all my outstretched boughs,

Hither and thither tossed me in its snows,

Beneath the joyless heaven.

O for the sunny leaves!

Almost I have forgot the breath of June!

Forgot the feathery light-flakes from the moon!

The praying summer-eves!

O for the joyous birds,

Which are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!

O for the billowy odours, and the bees

Abroad in scattered herds!

The blessing of cool showers!

The gratefulness that thrills through every shoot!

The children playing round my deep-sunk root,

Shadowed in hot noon hours!

Alas! the cold clear dawn

Through the bare lattice-work of twigs around!

Another weary day of moaning sound

On the thin-shadowed lawn!

Yet winter's noon is past:

I'll stretch my arms all night into the wind,

Endure all day the chill air and unkind;

My leaves will come at last.

- George MacDonald (1824-1905)