Nice wig, Janis. What's it made of?

"Medusa is your mom?" he asked.

 "Dude, that sucks for you."

-- Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena

Self portrait 10-19-13

"Naturally curly hair is a curse, and don't ever let anyone tell you different."

-- Mary Ann Shaffer, 

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

"She's fabulous, but she's evil."

-- Mean Girls

"Versace, Versace, Medusa head on me like I'm 'Luminati."

-- Drake, "Versace"

In my dual-purpose quest to come up with an October full of "disguise" faces, and come up with a good Halloween costume, I made myself this neat Medusa wig out of rubber snakes from the toy store!

Mad props to the nice clerk at my local Toys R Us, who helped me dig out all of the snakes they had in the way back on the bottom shelf of the store's "dollar deals" section.  

Oh, my goddess

"I knew that I looked at the reflection of Medusa,

the Gorgon,

fairest and foulest of living things,

the unclean creature, half woman, half eagle,

slain by the hero Perseus,

and one glimpse of whose tortured face

turned the luckless beholder into stone with the horror of it."

-- Gertrude Bacon, "The Gorgon's Head"

Self portrait in Medusa mask 8-18-13

Medusa mask 8-18-1

"It was a human head, severed at the neck, but fresh and unfaded as if but newly dead. It bore the features of a woman -- of a woman of more perfect loveliness than was ever told of in tale, or sculpted in marble, or painted on canvas. Every feature, every line was of the truest beauty, cast in the noblest mould -- the face of a goddess. But upon that perfect countenance was the mark of eternal pain, of deathless agony and suffering past words. The forehead was lined and knit, the death-white lips were tightly pressed in speechless torment; in the wide eyes seemed yet to lurk the flame of an unquenchable fire; while around the fair brows, in place of hair, curled and coiled the stark bodies of venomous serpents, stiff in death, but their loathsome forms still erect, their evil heads yet thrust forward 

as if to strike."

-- Gertrude Bacon, "The Gorgon's Head"

The Gentlewomen of Evil: An Anthology 

of Rare Supernatural Stories 

from the Pens of Victorian Ladies

This Medusa mask has been an ongoing project since early last year when I made a plaster cast of my face. The white, hardened, gauzy mask has been laying around my workspace for months, waiting for its purpose to come along. I've photographed it a couple of times, and even used it July 23 on this blog, as a makeshift Medusa with wooden snakes for hair.

I finally decided to make it permanent and glued the snakes in place, and painted the mask to look (I hope) like weathered bronze, like a statue covered in verdigris (small inset photo above). I tweaked the color, for dramatic effect, in today's self portrait.

Medusa fascinates me. 

Her story, her mythology, her significance, is all centered around her face.

She was a ravishing beauty, the only mortal daughter of two marine deities, who was "caught" being raped by Poseidon, god of the sea, in Athena's temple.

Athena was so enraged that she punished Medusa.

You read that right. 

She punished Medusa. 

For being raped.

As if being raped wasn't punishment enough, Athena poured salt in the wound by transforming Medusa's beautiful hair in to serpents, and making her face so grisly and terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would instantly turn onlookers to stone.

And not only that, to add more insult to injury, Medusa died (while pregnant by Poseidon) when she was beheaded by Perseus, at the request of King Polydectes. Perseus then used Medusa's severed head against the king, turning him to stone so that he couldn't marry Perseus' mother.

Medusa's face is one of the most famous faces in history.

It's been written about, it's been the subject of art for ages, eons, centuries.

The polarity of who and what she represents makes her a heroine and a monster.

She embodies female beauty and ugliness.

She represents strength and victimization.

Because others couldn't handle her beauty, they took advantage of it, they abused it, and they ultimately destroyed it.

Some things never change.

Freak show

“We’re freaks, that’s all ... 

We’re the tattooed lady, 

and we’re never going to have a minute’s peace, 

the rest of our lives, 

until everybody else is tattooed, too.”

-- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey 

Self portrait 7-11-13

 “I was always an unusual girl.”

-- Lana Del Rey

“Eschew the ordinary, disdain the commonplace. 

If you have a single-minded need for something, 

let it be the unusual, the esoteric, the bizarre, the unexpected.”

-- Chuck Jones

“All forms of madness, bizarre habits, 

awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, 

are justified in the person who creates good art.”

-- Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

I may not be the bearded lady.

I may not have a conjoined twin dangling from my chest.

I don't have the face of a wolf, or an elephant, or a bat.

I am not missing, nor do I have any extra, body parts.

I am neither unusually large nor unusually small.

I don't swallow swords or eat fire.

I am not "half this" and "half that."

My "deformity," my "biological rarity," is insomnia. Chronic sleeplessness is the thing that makes me feel like a total freak of nature. Insomnia is the thing that has shunted me off the bright, happy midway of life and into the murky shadows of the side-show tent.

It may sound like I am exaggerating, but I don't think so.

Lying awake all night long, night after night, alone, physically and emotionally and psychologically craving sleep that evades and eludes, nerves jumping, followed by days where I am useless, strung out and rattled from the exertion of exhaustion, when all I want is to semi-regularly experience a basic, biological, natural, normal human function ...

Yeah. 

I should sell tickets. 

Step right up! Step right up! 

Maybe a few strangers gawking at me through the tent flap would lessen the loneliness. 

At least there'd be witnesses to my fabled sleepless reality -- people who could confirm, awestruck with jaws on the ground, "She was awake, the whole night!" because they'd seen it with their own eyes. 

At least I'd be earning a living from the very thing that, right now, seems like a midway pick-pocket intent on stealing my life right out of my hands.

For now, I guess the best I can do about it is to make art out of it, hence today's face.

I'd keep company with the other side-show freaks, but they're sleeping.

Escaping the labyrinth

“Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.” 

-- Oscar Wilde

Polymer clay face with maple tree seed wings 6-18-13

“It seemed as if he had been falling for years.
Fly, a voice whispered in the darkness,
but Bran did not know how to fly,
so all he could do was fall.”

-- George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

"If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets."

-- Mel Brooks 

“Oh No! My wings are effed up!” 

-- Tammara Webber, Between The Lines 

If you haven't figured it out by now, I enjoy mythology.

Greek. Roman. All of it.

I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology in a high school world humanities class and fell in love.

Zeus. Hera. Apollo. Mercury. Icarus -- the danger, the adventure, the deception, the romance, the gods and goddesses whimsically exercising their grudges with each other by fucking with humanity.

I was the only student in the class who was totally into it, I think.

Yep. 

I was that kid.

I was an English major in college, but I took a heavy load of classics, as well. My final thesis was a comparison of literary styles shared by the Odyssey and the Aeneid, titled "Virgil's Dialogue With Homer: Artistry and Vision."

How pretentious does that sound?

Jesus, did I really do that?

 

There is something about those old myths that still gets me.

I think it is the truth.

The truth about human nature in relation to unpredictable forces beyond our control.

 

Like Icarus.

Icarus was the son of Deadalus. 

They lived on the island of Crete, ruled by King Minos. 

King Minos had an elaborate, inescapable labyrinth where he imprisoned the Minotaur, a deadly monster. He threw his enemies in there too.

 

Deadalus (with the help of a hot chick named Ariadne) betrayed the king by helping another guy, Theseus. He gave Theseus a thread so he could retrace his steps out of the labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.

 

Minos felt betrayed, so he imprisoned Deadalus and his son, Icarus, in the labyrinth.

Being a crafty guy, Deadalus knew the only way out was up. So he made 2 pair of wings from osier (willow) branches and wax, and taught Icarus to fly.

It worked. 

Deadalus and Icarus flew out on their new wings and escaped the labyrinth.

Deadalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, or his wings would melt.

But Icarus got so carried away by the amazing feeling of flight, that he didn't listen. 

And, well, his wings melted, and he crashed and burned.

Technically, I guess he burned and crashed, into a lake. 

 

Lots of ink has been spilled about what the lesson of Icarus is, much of it having to do with the consequences of youthful disobedience.

 

My question is, is it better to stay trapped in the labyrinth, with no way out, waiting to die someday?

Or is it better to take a risk and cobble together a pair of homemade wings so you can fly out of that fucker and feel freedom, even if it's only momentary?

 

So what if you fall?

You are probably already falling as it is.

 

For me, the lesson is simple. Get out. Whatever it takes. You might stick the landing.

But if you don't ...

 

I'd rather die free than imprisoned.

 

Whatever your "labyrinth" is, whatever imprisons you, whatever confusing maze hems you in -- depression, addiction, chronic pain, anxiety, insomnia, all of the above -- with the right people helping, you can get out.

They might sneak you the necessary thread.

Or they might just build you some wings.

Take the wings.

Don't worry about the potential crash.

Just fly.