A Little Opera for Mom & Dad
February 17, 2016
L’arbore di Diana=der Baum der Diana, music by Vicente Martin y Soler (1754-1806), libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, (1749-1838), design by Meredith Eliassen, 2015.
Opening night for the Trade Wind Opera Company, where everybody knows your name, they just can’t remember your face…
More popular with contemporary audiences than Mozart’s classic operas with Da Ponte librettos with audiences, this erotic comedy was quickly translated and performed in other counties. Diana, the goddess of chastity has a miraculous tree in her garden that can produce exceptionally large fruit that reveals the goodness or sins of those who pass beneath its branches.
The Haiku Snail’s Story
February 5, 2016
Haiku is a Japanese poetry form that originally evoked a moment in nature consisting of seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern.
Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828) wrote over 20,000 haiku. Although he was a popular poet, he lived in poverty. Through his many personal trials, his poetry utilizing local dialects and conversational phrases reflects a humility and simplicity. Issa wrote 54 haiku on the snail that serves as a study of their character that I have used for my interpretation of Felix the Helix…
Drawing of Felix the Helix before magical rain storm by Meredith Eliassen.
The snail is remarkable adept at exploring new habitats and spaces. Snails are mollusks; they originated in the oceans and over the course of time adapted to life on dry land. They lost their gills and evolved oxygen-breathing lungs. Felix the Helix (also known as “Happy the Snail”), shown here, is an earth snail with rather dull coloration, though some snails are arboreal and those tend to be brightly colored. Felix has a large fleshy foot, antennae and feelers on its head, and a coiled protective shell home that serves as a vessel encasing its asymmetrical visceral mass. Felix breathes through a kind of air-breathing lung and has a rasping organ in its mouth known as a radula.
In the winter, a snail can create a door to its shell, retreat into the shell and then close the door. Here Felix stays safe from the winter elements: “Big winter rain or little winter rain… sleeping is hard.” — Issa. Drawing by Meredith Eliassen.
Felix simply moves by following his nature according to his own principles. Though he appears to be slow, he actually flows effortlessly, without purpose and without a goal: he is one with the Universe. He possesses nothing. He moves and acts spontaneously from his nature and without purpose, he has become one with the Universe.
Felix awakens to find himself transformed in the morning: “Little snail facing this way, where to now?” — Issa. Drawing by Meredith Eliassen.
The Ancients…
February 4, 2016
After visiting my parents last year, I returned with a new supply of color pens and stories from the Sedona area. Meet Petro, an ancient member of the Lucky the Lizard posse, who visited my consciousness. A petroglyph is rock art created by removing rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, and Petro is drawn in the shape of an Arizona petroglyph of a lizard.
Design by Meredith Eliassen.
More on Math…
February 3, 2016
Euclid wrote: “There is no royal road to geometry.”
Adam H. Dickey wrote: “Figures are not things but thoughts; they are mental concepts, and as such they are available to every body.”
John L. Dobson wrote: “By the demise of those with poorer eyes, we gained our visual acuity, and by the demise of those with smaller brains, we improved our capacity to understand. It is that capacity which sets us apart amongst the watchers of the skies.”
Envision Euclid and Dobson together… as lizards, conversing.
Euclid (left) examines abstract calculation as Dobson (right) gazes at the heavens. Design by Meredith Eliassen, 2016.
Introducing Dobson and Euclid, the mathematical (gecko) sector of the Lucky the Lizard Posse. Euclid & Dobson Notecard
All the World is a Stage…
February 2, 2016
“All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Quote by William Shakespeare, drawing by Meredith Eliassen, 2016.
For the Birds…
January 27, 2016
“eve ry word a choice eve ry act a pray er eve ry act a choice eve ry word a prayer” Words by Robert Lax (1915-2000) from “In the Beginning was Love: Contemplative Words of Robert Lax,” edited with an introduction by S. T. Georgiou (2015), design by Meredith Eliassen, 2016.
The Seahorse as a Sailor’s Lucky Talisman
January 15, 2016
It was now the hour that turns back the longing of seafarer and melts their hearts, the day they have bidden dear friends farewell, and pierces the new traveler with love if he hears in the distance the bell that seems to mourn the dying day. Dante
Seahorse design featuring paisley motif by Meredith Eliassen, 2016.
Some Asian cultures traditionally viewed the seahorse as a sea dragon and prized them as symbols of good luck. The seahorse is a unique creature. The female impregnates the male who carries the offspring to term. A mild-mannered creature, the seahorse contentlt ambles through the ocean. The seahorse wraps its tail around the nearest object or mate in order to anchor itself in turbulent waters. Paisley Seahorse Notecard
Into the Woods We Go…
January 7, 2016
“You will find something more in the woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.” ~Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Design by Meredith Eliassen, 2016.
Looking back to Illumination
January 5, 2016
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration or illustration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniatures. In the strictest definition of the term, an illuminated manuscript only refers to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver. However all words accompanied by imagery become more memorable to the artist and to anybody that views the imagery.
A leaf from a French Book of Hours, circa 1420, photographed by R. I. Otterbach in late afternoon light on an autumn day in 2014. The reversal of numbers in the years amuses me.
I am embracing the illuminated written word. Though I cannot replicate the work of this scribe with my little Micron pens and Strathmore watercolor paper, I admire this illuminator’s fine decorative line work and I am letting up-lifting messages shape my designs.
Visiting the Praying Penguins…
December 21, 2015
There was a break in the rain and I went to pay my regards to Bufano’s “Praying Penguins” next to Lake Merced, and this ol’ boy stepped out from behind them with a little song sparrow in his hand. He gave me a message and then disappeared: “Tell Oliver I am on my way…”
Design by Meredith Eliassen, 2015.
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