Thursday, April 7, 2011

Bearden Juxtaposed with Dunbar

Romare Bearden, The Prevalence of Ritual: Mysteries, 1964

We went over this artwork today in class, and it reminded me of We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

  WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
    This debt we pay to human guile;
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
    And mouth with myriad subtleties.

    Why should the world be over-wise,
    In counting all our tears and sighs?
    Nay, let them only see us, while
            We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
    To thee from tortured souls arise.
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
    But let the world dream otherwise,
            We wear the mask!

Good Life

Although I've been really stressed with getting stuff ready for my senior art show, graduation, graduation itself/celebrations, and getting my ducks in a row for grad school--I am really having a good life right!! Yeah, nothing is perfect or ideal right now, and I do have other stuff going wrong in my life, everything still feels right. I'm just happy, glad, excited, joyful, exuberant, ecstatic, all of the above!! Earlier today one of my friends said I seem happy on facebook, and I replied you know what, I feel happy! Right now, I'm living  the good life and I am going to ride it out as long as this season lasts. Life can change in an instant.