Book43

SketchBooks

De Rerum Natura
March 18, 2012 - June 25, 2012
17 x 25.5 cm; handbound cover: canvas, gesso, silver-leaf, graphite

Cover of sketchbook 43: white gessoed cloth painted with a large marbled sphere in red, gold and green, a small silver moon circle set into its lower edge
Sketchbook 43 dedication, Ghent, 18 March 2012: a night-blue gouache of star wheels over rooftops, facing Lucretius's invocation to life-stirring Venus copied in red-brown ink Sketchbook 43 spread: graphite studies of a bent leg and hand holding a pen, and on the right page feet dragged mid-stride, toes trailing across shaded ground Sketchbook 43 spread titled '5 still lives': graphite studies of a sleeping spaniel, a looming foreshortened face, a crouched nude, and a girl in a skirt standing with a bag Sketchbook 43 spread: a real pressed pansy taped over pencil pansies in a vase; opposite, a portrait of an older man in a tank top and a note on seeing the work of Steven Assael, 26 May 2012 Sketchbook 43 spread: pencil lilies in a glass jar — 'Nature is organized. It's like all my life I've been worshipping the wrong goddess' — facing faint studies of hands and feet Sketchbook 43 spread from a hospital room, 1 June 2012: pencil studies of the draped bedside table, IV drip lines, a faucet, and a hand cradling a heart-rate clip — 'Oh Venus, where did I go wrong?' Sketchbook 43 spread: two soft graphite studies of the same seated bald model over faint journal writing — from behind at left, from the side with folded hands at right Sketchbook 43 spread: peonies in a ribbed vase in silvery graphite at left; loose pink colored-pencil peonies at right with notes on Keats, Rousseau, and looking deeper

Life-stirring Venus, Mother of Aeneas and of Rome,
Pleasure of men and gods, you make all things beneath the dome
Of sliding constellations teem, you throng the fruited earth
And the ship-freighted sea--for every species comes to birth
Conceived through you, and rises forth and gazes on the light.
The winds flee from you, Goddess, your arrival puts to flight
The clouds of heaven. For you, the crafty earth contrives sweet flowers,
For you, the oceans laugh, the skies grow peaceful after showers,
Awash with light. For soon as morning wears the face of spring,
And the West Wind is free and freshens, warm and quickening,
The airy tribe of birds, O Holy One, is first to start
Heralding your approach, struck with your power through the heart;
Then beasts, the wild and tame alike, go romping over the lush
Pastureland and swim across the rivers’ headlong rush,
So eagerly does each pant after you, so do they heed,
Caught in the chains of love, and follow you wherever you lead,
...
Because alone you steer the nature of things upon its course,
And nothing can arise without you on light’s shining shores,
And nothing glad or lovely can be fashioned, I invite
You Goddess, stand beside me, be my partner as I write...

From “On The Nature of Things” (DeRerumNatura)
written by Lucretius in 50 B.C.
translated by A.E. Stallings
(written as a dedication on the first page of Book43)

Sketchbook 43: the June 2012 transit of Venus painted as an ochre-gold sun disc with the planet a small dark dot near its lower edge

drawing made inside back cover as i watched the TransitOfVenus in 2012.

44.
42.