On white woven and smoothed fields all those fresh bits of paint, crumbly, juicy, smeary. Rose pinks, blood reds, larkspur blues, jonquil yellows, bile greens and death and hell black. Athena with wiggling snakes and owl; Europe riding a beast; bubbling birth of Apollo, Leda and billowing swan. Zeus and Bacchus frolicking in earnest; Danae embracing clouds of gold; Hero and Leander sinking in cruel turmoil of purples. All in vast Mediterranean sky. All those creepy needs of gods like everyone else in the grip of domineering, leering flight and tender surrenders. Cy himself sat enthroned under them in smiling appreciation. “I like my last paintings up while I still have a crush on them,” he said.
He produced big sheets of paper and a bunch of half-greasy, half-chalky crayons. He commenced to draw haphazard phrases and names on the white paper, row of scrawly scrawls. Tattery like the edges of clouds, involved like bumble bee flight. We made patterns and patterns and webs. All this was to catch the dabs and dashes of paint and voilà – the beginning, no, also the end of a picture. This was a lesson I never let go and I practise it today.
He produced big sheets of paper and a bunch of half-greasy, half-chalky crayons. He commenced to draw haphazard phrases and names on the white paper, row of scrawly scrawls. Tattery like the edges of clouds, involved like bumble bee flight. We made patterns and patterns and webs. All this was to catch the dabs and dashes of paint and voilà – the beginning, no, also the end of a picture. This was a lesson I never let go and I practise it today.
