Diamonds of the Deepest Ocean 15X38 Pastel and pencil on paper
The title Diamonds of the Deepest Ocean is a line from Bob Dylan's Boots of Spanish Leather:
But if I had the stars of the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean
I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss
For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'
It contains text from Adrienne Rich’s Diving into the Wreck:
........ I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
........
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the ones who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
The bright colors mimic red jellyfish in the deep ocean. These and other species of jellyfish are expected to populate very quickly the Earth as the climate changes. As a result, the drawing represents the end of the world and the conclusion of the Intermezzo.