"The Tigers of Nanzen-ji" by Troy's Work Table.
Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.
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"wander an extraordinary / maze whose very / air's alive, alit with breeze- / borne inebriants" and "but claws / bedded in their velvet-napped paws, / for there will be no killings tonight." —from "The Tigers of Nanzen-ji" by Brad Leithauser, as found in Cats of the Temple
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I illustrated an ekphrastic poem. (I'll let that sink in for a moment.)
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I had an image in mind before I sought out a reproduction of the artwork to which the poem refers. While I appreciate what the poet does with the original painting, I still decided to bring my own piece to life. (Otherwise, what is the point of the project? And I didn't want another Leithauser poem; I wanted this one.)
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In the poem, I sense a divide between what is wild and what is domesticated.
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And there is a playfulness here. This is the "pretend" and the "play" that we often relegate to the realm of children's games, even though those games are real and difficult work.
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In the poem, I sense a notion of working within the bounds of what we know, with the knowledge, resources, and tools that are at hand. (Can we really do anything else?)
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We cannot know what we do not know, for good or ill.
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Sometimes we need a guide.
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Sometimes we need permission to encounter things as they really are.
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The punchline of the poem comes in the last two stanzas. We are reassured that "the danger's all a bluff" and that we are "free from harm here." Yet can we truly be safe and secure in the face of an encounter with the divine—even if it is mediated in the form of a work of art, a wild beast, or a religious sanctuary? (Or in this case, some thing that serves as all three?)
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