Jay DeFeo - The Rose (1958-69)
“The story of Jay DeFeo and The Rose is both a cautionary tale of obsession and an inspiring tale of determination and belief. She began working on The Rose in 1958. She was 29 years old and for the next eight years, she did little else but sit on a stool in her studio, smoking cigarettes, drinking brandy while she painted and scraped away at her vision.
First titled The Deathrose, then The White Rose and finally just The Rose, DeFeo only stopped working on the painting when an increase in rent forced her from her studio. By then it was 1966, her marriage was ending, she was in fragile physical and mental health, and The Rose had become too large to fit out the door.
At nearly 12 feet high and in places eight inches thick, The Rose was constructed from layer upon layer of built up and scraped away black and white paint. DeFeo added mica chips to the paint and so The Rose has its own interior light.”
I’m going to word vomit for a minute.
Bare with me here. It doesn’t have much to do with you. But more about myself and mainly why and how I choose do and think and feel the things I do.
I was terribly heartbroken by someone I trusted dearly around two years ago. He decided to get up and leave in a relationship I saw going long term. He was kind and intelligent, but maybe a little too pompous at times. He attends Georgetown Law now and we have stopped talking. And that’s all you really need to know about that.
But you see. This is why I am so closed off.
I came out of that relationship raging with shot gun in hand and my chin up, it seems. I only played games. I never got too close. I hung out with more guys than girls. I built my own empire. Tamara and I together, became these hard women. Thelma and Louise. The epitome of I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.
But you see — Now I do.
And that makes me terrified.
I give too many fucks now. Because I can see myself falling for you. I can see it. And it’s different this time. Our lives are intertwining.
And you’re the person that is making me slowly grow soft again. Silently, through your ways, you’re telling me to put down my gun. That it is okay to feel again.
“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
~ Andrews Boyd
Artist: Sarah Meech
(via atinydanc3r)
