Linda E Sale

UNVEILING SOULS

- part four -

"Is it me, or is the raven smiling slyly?"

 Continuing the series of responses by my son the writer Joseph Sale.

Summer Crow - mixed media

The raven, or more generically the crow, is the symbol of knowledge in many cultures, perhaps because they are such intelligent animals. There are studies of ravens feeling empathy for their slain fellows, responding positively or negatively to those they consider ‘friend or foe’, using tools in the wild to access out-of-reach food, disguising where they hide food and even playing dead. In Norse mythology, the raven is the messenger of the god Odin, fulfilling the role of Hermes in Greek pantheon (Hermes was considered a mainline of knowledge as he bears messages from all the corners of Olympus and Earth below – all secrets pass through him). The raven was also, of course, the animal chosen by Edgar Allan Poe to represent the insistent prompting of the psyche, the deeper subconscious that already knows the truth we cannot rationally / consciously accept: Lenore is dead.

Here we see the raven set on a golden background. In the top right corner, the sun shines. The dark green foliage beneath is flecked with autumnal shades. The image represents an icon, but I’m not aware of any icons depicting ravens, which is perhaps what makes this image so striking. It is a Pagan icon, a Norse re-imagining of Christian shrine imagery. The raven is depicted against a backdrop of boundless light. As well as iconography, the gold also recalls the desert sands and embossed pyramids of Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians associated gold with divinity. The re-forged member of Osiris was of gold. Here, the image also becomes Hermetic, emblematic of the secret knowledge of the world, so much of which has been lost through thoughtless bloodshed. The placement of the autumnal leaves amidst the dark green is, at least to my mind, suggestive of the fact we are running out of time. The world is ageing, moving steadily towards its winter (again, an Anglo Saxon / Norse idea). The raven, however, stands above this. It stands in the realm of immortality, of gold-clad eternity. Is it me, or is the raven smiling slyly?

UNVEILING SOULS

- part three -

"This piece of digital art to me represents daydreaming and the power of the imagination". Continuing the series of responses by my son the writer Joseph Sale. 

A Quiet Figure - digital painting

This piece of digital art to me represents daydreaming and the power of the imagination. The woman sits pensively on a stone, one hand casually slung across her knees, the other looks like it is stroking her chin (or perhaps she is chewing her nails?). The right hand side of the canvas is white-space, empty. The left hand side is roiling gold. To me, the gold seems to be springing from the back of her head, representing the wealth of thought that lies ‘behind’ the face. It should be noted that in Greek mythology Athena sprang from the head of Zeus. He literally created a god with his imagination, in one sense. The woman faces away from us, looking outward at the ‘whitespace’ and revealing little to the world. The ‘powdering’ effect on the image suggests winter, like snowflakes falling around her, but it also makes the woman and her hair glisten, as though she is caught in a dazzling sunbeam or has just emerged from water. The gold could represent the sun too, of course, falling on her back and hair. This might invite a more Pagan reading, of sun worship, though interestingly she faces away from the sunlight.

There is a certain contemplative anxiety about this image. Perhaps it reflects the model’s anxiety as she was being sketched? Perhaps it is my mother’s own anxiety about the way the image would come out? Either way, there is an intriguingly neolithic quality to this piece. The squatting posture of the ‘thinker’ evokes cave men and women to me, pondering the nature of their existence in whatever language they had. The outward form, which is human and fleshly, belies the internal gold, which is the human spirit and intelligence, purer and more perfect than its outward shell.

UNVEILING SOULS

- part two -

"I imagine the silence and stillness of sitting in that little pointed alcove, unaffected by the turbulence of the waters around me" Continuing the series of responses by my son the writer Joseph Sale.

Into the Blue - mixed media

There’s a saying among novelists that ‘one idea does not a great novel make’. It’s always the intersection between two (or more) great ideas that form an intriguing story. This image embodies this, for me. On the one hand, it uses architectural shapes that remind us of classical geometry. On the other, it uses a kind of roiling textured paintwork that gives us the impression of an ocean or water. In the top left-hand corner, gold plays across the ripples, suggesting light from some far-above surface trickling down into the deep. The piece is called ‘Into the Blue’ and in this it makes me think of two things. Firstly, ‘blue’ as in the mood of being down, from which the musical genre gets its epithet. Secondly, ‘blue’ meaning ‘the ocean’. Interesting, in the middle of the piece, bordered off by the curved arch-lines, there is a place where the water is undisturbed. This hollow draws our focus. It is like a little piece of serenity found somewhere deep within. A bubble of calm. Looking at this piece makes me feel sad and peaceful at the same time. I imagine the silence and stillness of sitting in that little pointed alcove, unaffected by the turbulence of the waters around me. At the same time, there, I am shut off from the light trying to reach me by a solid wall. I cannot help but think the curved walls are also somehow symbolic of the walls of the human skull. These are the external barriers that do not permit light into the dark, deep caverns of our minds.

UNVEILING SOULS

- part one -

I recently asked my son - the writer Joseph Sale - to select some of his favourite pieces of my artwork and to make a written response to them. I was intrigued by his choices and the images and thoughts they evoked...

The Light of st Honorat - mixed media

A while ago, my mother and father went to visit the isle of St Honorat in the Bay of Cannes. This holy and beautiful place, which has been a home to a community of monks since the fifth century, was inspirational to them; my father for his poetry, and my mother for her artwork. In this piece , my mother has captured the shapes of St Honorat’s buildings, arches, and corridors in an almost impressionistic way. The more I look at this image, the more I feel a strange sense of peace. It reminds me of W. B. Yeat’s poem ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, where the narrator must escape the busyness of modern life to live a modest existence amidst the sound of ‘honey bees’ and the beauty of the natural world. The effect of the poem is ‘stilling’, it gives the mind room for contemplation of the higher ideals of life. The effect of this piece is similar.