atlas' marker

It's strange how following a creative impulse twists and turns, once you allow it to guide you. The evolution of this piece goes like this:

I started this image a week ago, not sure what it was going to be, as usual, starting with a model shot with no background. As I added things into it, I started seeing some things I like, but something wasn't clicking. I decided to keep what I built up, and replaced the underlying model shot with another one. Bingo. That did it - and that became "Is There Something I Should Know?" which became one of my personal favorite pieces I have created thus far. It was crisp and clean, and I knew exactly what it was trying to say. I felt it was a success, at least creatively, for me.

After completing a three day edit for "Stories For Boys" I was pretty sure I was due for a day off or more, to recharge the creative batteries. But as I was backing up files, I came across this one again, the starting point for "Is There Something I Should Know" and I started playing with it again. That one was about following creative impulses and letting them guide you, and once I turned down the lights and made the palette of this one colder, the idea of creating a sequel or a conclusion to it was tempting. I have long wanted to experiment with doing pieces of three in a series, a triptych piece, so this notion of connecting ideas and images together with common elements or events is a direction I seem to be headed in, and the symbolism of three has been something I have been playing with for a few pieces as well.

So with this, this is an imagined outcome to the journeyman in "Is There Something I Should Know?" - and maybe this man has followed his muse to a sad conclusion, where nothing lives or breathes, and all is in a state of decay. It could be the tired mind personified, the depletion of creative vigor, the twilight of life, where aspirations slow and slump and the youthful passions mellow from time, from resistance and a growing sense of nihilism. In the distance, we see the same young man from the earlier piece, still following his instincts, unaware that others have come this way, others have broken this ground already, and this path is not the one to follow.

I say "maybe" because for me, this is open-ended in my mind too - I have a sense of what this is saying, but strangely, this piece is asking me questions, rather than me adding answers to it consciously. The two pieces were very satisfying to work on - it felt like solving a puzzle, it felt like writing, and the environment, that field, the ladders, the guiding psychic strings, instead of being a mere backdrop for the central image, was almost palpable - someplace I could almost see myself in, and wanted to be in. It was as close as I have come to creating a vital dreamscape, in my opinion, and as sad as I am to see it go for now, I am glad it found its way into two pieces. Look into the distance, and there is the young man from the earlier image.

My title comes from one of my favorite songs, itself a surrealist piece, with allegorical images filled with personal symbolism, by Rickie Lee Jones. It was running though my head all day as I worked on this, so it seemed insistent to attach itself to my image. Particularly I was drawn to these lines:

Maybe you want another world
One where heaven doesn't weight so much...
Well I've got something warm inside me
It won't let you fall 'til I see
Somewhere better than this place
Some night you'll open your eyes and live far away
Somewhere better than the world where we live...

I'm an aviator now
Atlas hold me in your arms, I'll fly…

Model: Mike Ryan (with Gilberto Mendez in the distance)

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Diamond Commento da/Comment by Giovanni Tisocco su/on 4 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 14:42: come dice Sergio Inarrivabile ..COMPLIMENTI ...

Commento da/Comment by Alessandro Barletta☺ su/on 4 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 0:33: (...for the friends!)

Mi dispiace molto di non essere in grado di tradurre il testo perfettamente ... ma in esso (per quanto recepisco nella foto) ho còlto una grande passione,
e la tua auto-consapevolezza di aver raggiunto, finalmente dopo molti tentativi e insoddisfazioni, il "giusto" centro del lavoro ...la "perfezione" ... il "compimento"!
ed è entusiasmante ascoltare il tuo "grido" di gioia: si sente tutta la sua potenza!
Anche con una traduzione parziale ... "intuisco" quello che dici perché l'ho provato, più volte, durante la realizzazione dei miei disegni:
veri e propri viaggi nella mia immaginazione che, tramite essi, ha preso forma e raccontato storie fantastiche:
Come te ho sentito l'estasi nel raggiungimento del..."compimento" ...! Non un attimo prima ... (quando sembra che non ci manchi ancora qualcosa) ...
né un attimo dopo ...
"ECCO!", quando ti senti alla fine... riguardi e riguardi...1000 volte tutte le "figure" nella composizione
e le vedi librarsi autonome nel foglio, perfette, nella giusta relazione una con l'altra ... dialogando tra loro anche nel contrasto

tutte allegorie di te stesso ...che, miracolosamente, dànno pace alla tua turbolenza interiore
giustificando la tua oscurità angosciante, piena di misteri e paure!
anzi! talvolta toccando, come in un transfert soprannaturale, la dimensione impercebile dai sensi ...
che ... qualcuno chiama "divina" e qualcun'altro "cosmica"!
Tornando alla foto "quale appare" ... ci leggo "citazioni" della leggerezza del surrealismo onirico di Magritte

e il tocco "gothic-fantasy" di Tim Burton ... molto ben reinterpretate e realizzate! un gran bel lavoro! complimenti!
Eppure non riesco a trattenermi dal decifrare la serie di cappelli: il vero fil-rouge dell'intera foto!
A volte eterei come il volo degli uccelli, a volte "statici" posati in cima alle scale, a volte ... su...in testa!
E me li immagino come simbolo di pensieri ... pensieri, "generati" dal protagonista "pensante" (l'alter ego dell'autore...il creatore ) ...
... Alcuni di loro, gravi, indecollabili, bloccati in cima a quei percorsi della ragione (le scale), sviluppi meccanicisti di "causa-effetto"
che, giunti all'ultimo gradino, arrestano il loro cammino!

Altri, invece, prendono il volo, come ballerini leggeri trasportati senza mèta e fine dalla "propria" tempesta interiore!
E poi...quella lanterna in fondo: l'uomo (questa volta l'autore stesso) che cerca se stesso...nella tormenta!
Dal raffronto delle luci spiccano i significati delle due dimensioni umane: la tenue conoscenza (la lanterna) e il fascino abbagliante dell'ignoto
(Il cosmo o il dio di cui sopra).
Mi correggo: il "pensatore" è in realtà un osservatore "attento" ... non ha niente a che vedere con il rimuginante e "chiuso in se stesso" "pensatore" scolpito da Rodin!
Una cosa non mi torna: l'aridità del suo corpo (come un terreno riarso) ... che contrasta con il campo di papaveri su cui si ergono le "scale" ...
...forse, nonostante gli sforzi, sono io il "vano pensatore"...quello che non riesce a trovare il..."centro"!

Commento da/Comment by Alessandro Barletta☺ su/on 3 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 23:37: (...hoping for an adeguate translation)

I am very sorry not to be able to translate text perfectly ... but in it (transposed in the picture)

I gathered a great passion, and self-awareness that you have reached, finally after many attempts and dissatisfaction,

the "right" center of the work ... the perfection ... the finish! and it is great to listen to your "shout" for joy you feel all his power!

Even without being able to translate everything ... I "intuit" what you say because I've tried, many times, during the making of my drawings:

authentic travel within my imagination that, in them, took shape and built fantastic stories: I felt the ecstasy in achieving fulfillment ...!

Not a moment before ... (when it seems that there is still missing something) ... nor a moment later ... "That" when you feel you have arrived

at ... "point" ... 1000 times and cover your "figures" in your composition and see hovering on each sheet in the right relationship with the other

... dialoguing allegories of yourself ... miraculously they give you inner peace in turbulence justifying our agonizing darkness full of mysteries and fears!

indeed! sometimes making you touch, in a supernatural transference, the size impercebile by the senses ...

That ... someone called "divine" while others "cosmic"! Returning to the picture "as it appears" ...

I see in "quotes" the lightness of dreamlike surrealism of Magritte and Touch "gothic fantasy" Tim Burton's ... very well reinterpreted!

a large beautiful work!

Yet I can not stop myself from decipher the series of hats: the fil-rouge entire photo! Sometimes ethereal flying like birds,

sometimes "laid" on top of stairs, sometimes ... in the head! And I try to imagine those hats as a symbol of thoughts ...

thoughts, "born" from the thoughtful protagonist (the alter ego of the author) ... ...

Some of them, serious, indecollabili, stuck on top of those paths rational (the stairs), but mechanistic consequences have developed for "cause-effect"

that the top rung, stop!

Others, however, take flight, graceful dancers in the wind of their "own" inner storm!

And then there is the lantern at the bottom: the man (this time the author himself) who seeks himself!

In the confrontation of the lights stand out the meanings of the two human dimensions: the soft knowledge (the lantern)

and the dazzling charm of the unknown (The cosmos or the god above).

And from there a fix: The "thinker" is actually an observer "attentive" ... I do not like the "self-enclosed" sculpted by Rodin!

One thing I do not back: the dryness of his body (like a parched land) ... as opposed to the poppy field on which rest the "scale" ...

I ... maybe, despite the best efforts, I could not find ... the "center"!!

Diamond Commento da/Comment by luigino tommasin su/on 3 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 20:51: grande lavoro sia di fantasia che in post,complimenti

Diamond Commento da/Comment by Silvio Maggioni su/on 2 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 23:17: Complimenti per la creativa e la fantasia

Diamond Commento da/Comment by Sergio Codogno su/on 2 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 22:30: Inarrivabile fantasia, inarrivabile tecnica!!!

Diamond Commento da/Comment by Stefano Trabalza su/on 2 Giugno/June 2013 a/at 21:46: Compliments. Beautiful work both during shooting with preospettive and set design, very comfortable, both in post-production stage, although I am not fond intervene with invasive interventions on the picture fascinates me.
P.S. the light in the sky is my hat size fabul.