I created a piece for the annual art auction put on by the Salem Art Association...this is not it....in the process of thinking about what I would use as my subject matter....( the theme of this years show is H2O ) I came across a reference to a german water wraith called "Ondine" ....google or wiki her story...fascinating....I started making figures ... my Mom gave me this painted canvas...I added batting and some free-motion-stitching and stretched it on a frame...."Ondine" sits nicely "on the rocks "...waiting...waiting....actually since I like to have something to do while I wait I decided that she crochets.....while she waits.....the stretched canvas is 10" X 20"......
Ondine
by Mary Barnard
At supper time an ondine’s narrow feet
made dark tracks on the hearth.
Like the heart of a yellow fruit was the fire’s heat,
but they rubbed together quite blue with the cold.
The sandy hem of her skirt dripped on the floor.
She sat there with a silvered cedar knot
for a low stool; and I sat opposite,
my lips and eyelids hot
in the heat of the fire. Piling on dry bark,
seeing that no steam went up from her dark dress,
I felt uneasiness
as though firm sand had shifted under my feet
in the wash of a wave.
I brought her soup from the stove and she would not eat,
but sat there crying her cold tears,
her blue lips quivering with cold and grief.
She blamed me for a thief,
saying that I had burned a piece of wood
the tide washed up. And I said, No,
the tide had washed it out again; and even so,
a piece of sodden wood was not so rare
as polished agate stones or ambergris.
She stood and wrung her hair
so that the water made a sudden splash
on the round rug by the door. I saw her go
across the little footbridge to the beach.
After, I threw the knot on the hot coals.
It fell apart and burned with a white flash,
a crackling roar in the chimney and dark smoke.
I beat it out with a poker
in the soft ash.
Now I am frightened on the shore at night,
and all the phosphorescent swells that rise
come towards me with the threat of her dark eyes
with a cold firelight in them;
and crooked driftwood writhes
in dry sand when I pass.
Should she return and bring her sisters with her,
the withdrawing tide
would leave a long pool in my bed.
There would be nothing more of me this side
the melting foamline of the latest wave.
detail of the quilted painting...funny my Mom didn't "see" the waterfall till I quilted it in
we have a vague plan of completing a series of works based on Ondine/water....
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