African Queen

Consummation

Sunday afternoon often sees me round at best of friends Susan's house and this Sunday, I was a woman on a mission.  Why? Because I wanted a photograph of my favourite painting of 'African Queen'.  She's special to me because I watched her come into being over many months.

First she was shades on paper, then an outline and gradually her head began to emerge, smooth like old alabaster asking to be stroked.  For a while, she had neat, heart-shaped lips, which made her look a bit prissy and stand-offish to me. Then Johnny smudged her lips and she became the tantalising temptress, whom I nicknamed 'Hot Lips'.  She eventually became 'Consummation'.

Consummation

It's a funny thing, but as time goes by, I find that Johnny's abstract paintings start 'talking'; asking questions.  I start to wonder about them and before I know it, they have become my companions. They start out as his, but they become mine too.

The same has happened to Susan.  She found herself wondering about Consummation.
Who is she?  Is it a she, or are they a 'they'? It reminded her of her favourite poem:

From 'The love song of J Alfred Prufrock' by T S Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

Who is 'you and I'?  A lover, friend, alter-ego?  Intrigued, by the two images of the Queen, Susan asked Johnny.  He said that it's a she; one woman.  That still leaves plenty of questions to ask!

'Have you any idea how difficult it is?' Johnny asked me, while he was working on Consummation, 'to draw two perfectly identical heads?'  

I think my last attempts at perfect copying were maximum/minumum curves in calculus, decades ago and I remember well the disappointing eraser smudges around my wonky curves.


Johnny reveres Egon Schiele's drawing and recently had the opportunity to view an original.  'I looked at the line and examined in detail each tiny section,' he recounted. 'It brought tears to my eyes, it was so exquisite.'