artSPACE durban
The End (of the world as we know it)
About to go into theatre
(The only thing to do under these circumstances is to stick a pair of theatre knickers on your head)
‘What the Caterpillar calls the End..., the Master calls a Butterfly’ (Richard Bach)
They call it anomalous heart anatomy and that it was unsustainable as it was. Hence having my most sacred inner space cut into, modified, reprogrammed and rebooted.
This could have been the end for me and it still could be. It’s certainly the end of life as I have experienced it for the last 45 years. I can’t take life for granted anymore. So do I live in fear or do I try and come to terms with my mortality. The masters say that by achieving the latter I will live my life more fully, with more awareness and appreciation, that the Experience of living becomes sharper and more fully experienced. That one’s focus settles less on the trivial things of life, more on the things that really matter. But for me, the caterpillar, this is still all clouded with fear. I don’t want to die. There’s too much to live for. Too much I’ll battle letting go of. And what is this? After all you take nothing with you so what am I hanging on to? For me making sure, as far as is possible that the ones I love and the ones that are dependent on me will be ok and taken care of. But beyond this what is this fear? Those well used sayings like ‘life is so precious’ just touch so deeply. And ‘make it count’. I can no longer spend my days just getting through and getting what must get done, done. It’s got to me more than that because it might all end tomorrow.
As one of the many endings in life that may lead to or point the direction towards that final transition, this ending, this process of heart surgery has been one such transition for me and this piece of work is, I am hoping, part of the process I need to go through to get to that place that is the butterfly.
'What the Caterpilla calls the End...
Photograph, etched glass and resin frame inlaid with my medical paraphernalia
... The Master calls a Butterfly'
Photograph, etched glass and resin frame inlaid with my medical paraphernalia
