between here and there

yesterday we went to see 'heaven and earth unveiled: European treasures from the Tanenbaum collection'. i am democratic about exhibitions, and even though the title screams old dead white men painting old dead white men, i went along. you never know what you might find. i found very little...i remarked on how in the 19th century, orientalism consisted of grand, colourful, violent, sexy images of harems and nomads and religious devotion. now orientalism consists of world vision commercials and what's left of war footage after the embedded stuff is edited. how post-colonial.

thinking about heaven and earth i would rather think of gathie falk. she, known for 'private world' ceramics (she prefers the seductive 'private' over the betty crocker 'domestic' when describing her very feminine feminist work) has lately been found painting the heavens. falk was there before...her turned-to-stone, uninhabited but full-bodied ceramic summer dresses captured that moment when the soul disappears. her recent paintings are on the same cusp, about to be death, full of air and light and the passage. she is getting old and more sensitive but straightforward about her comment that we are here to be here and in a flash of stars it is over and what is left are clothes hardened by sweat from living and an unknown soft gauze of heaven.