Luigi Monteferrante in Caravaggio mode.
One day, one day without painting, was hell – no, but purgatorio, si.
Yesterday, work on the house had me assisting the bricklayer and plumber, and so I was on call for errands, cleaning, and moving furniture back and forth. Nothing heavy, nor tiring, and with small talk, the morning passed by easily enough.
By afternoon, however, the realization that I had nothing in mind, body, or spirit regarding my next painting had me feeling wretched, my mind not a blank, which conjures a clean, fresh, bright page, canvas or screen; instead, a thick, turgid, muddy green/grey swamp dully bubbling at an ever-decreasing rate and temperature.
My body, too, began to creak, my muscles growing taut, my spirit sluggish, dull, a smoky fog as heavy as a lead mantle.
The day’s work done, I walked into the night by the sea, head slung low, the only rumblings the crash of waves ashore. So, too, dinner and after, a quiet evening of dull despair and emptiness failed to bring deliverance.
I woke up at 3:09, ready to plug my ears with a BBC podcast when suddenly a vision.
A vision.
That is: two consecutive, successive visions.
Clear, perfect, two bodies of work delivered bedside.
La notte porta giudizio, says an Italian proverb, night brings wisdom.
And something more. Levitation. And the exit sign out of Limbo.
