Topic: art in progress
The first sketch for the marriage picture was made just from my imagination and I like it the best. In it I tried to do a rough estimate of my own wedding dress. However, Mike was disappointed that the horse didn't look sexier in her dress. Of course he had no idea he was insulting my own gown. So I went to the library and looked at designer gowns in a Vogue magazine. And at that black tie event there were tuxedos too.Now, it is very easy to draw a cat in a tuxedo. Just a head and four paws. But a horse in a dress? Her arms would have to be akimbo and her legs knock-kneed. Still, the animals were right, in the ways that the stars move across the sky at a speed that is right. Mike is the Kindly Cat, and cats do adore him. Any cat from any neighborhood. I've seen it happen again and again.
Another thing about Mike, you can't quite pin who he is down. He has that cat mysteriousness. The cat is content so much of the time, their lives seem lazy and effortless. Mike would be one of those cats who would like to curl up against your arm while you read a book.
Mike never ceases to amaze me what he can teach me about affection. He once warned me, "you can break a kitty-cat's heart" when I left the new cat from the rescue pound in a dog crate for too many days. Logic says the cat is used to being caged, but as it seemed, she knew that she had been rescued and she desperately wanted to live with us. When I ignored her pitiful cries, yes, I was breaking her heart. At the time ignoring a little mewing seemed like the strong thing to do. But after Mike spoke I felt very ashamed about my former "strength". Unable to hear the need in the cat's voice for whatever reason, it really was a weakness of my capacity for love.It is harder to say why I am represented at my wedding by the Noble Horse. I had a strong dream about six months ago and in it I was rescued by a man on a horse. Only, I never saw the man in my dream, except his red boots! What I remember were the large liquid brown eyes of the grey horse. I suppose that I was sitting on the ground and it was the horse's head that reached out to me first.
Horses seem so strong to me. And the way they can march bravely, relentlessly into battle. They go forward without aggression. I think the reason they go forward is for love of speed and love of determination. When I go forward into life it does feel like I am going to battle. For who, and for what cause I can only guess at. But I do want to be nobel. and I can't think of the subject without attaching it to a good deed.
Mike and I will be printing a small icon of the cat and the horse on our wedding invitations. But the best part is that this image, once it is dry, (because it is made from oil paint and that dries slowly!) will be taken to a giclee printmaker. The thank you presents for all the guests at the wedding will be a 5"1/2 x 7"1/2 silver framed print of, "The Mystical Marriage of the Kindly Cat to the Nobel Horse".And oh. The colors of the January wedding (I do hope for snow) will be white, silver, and indigo.
Posted by dignifyme
at 6:44 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 28 September 2005 6:55 PM EDT
