
everyone you know is a bird
Kasia Derwinska, Voice of Silence (2013)
“When around one everything has become silent, solemn as a clear, starlit night, when the soul comes to be alone in the whole world, then before one there appears, not an extraordinary human being, but the eternal power itself, then the heavens open, and the I chooses itself or, more correctly, receives itself.” – Søren Kierkegaard
Come Undone by Beth Cavener Stichter
A gallery of ceramic sculpture. It’s rare to feel as if an animal can possess you — inhabit your body, mind and spirit as if it were a new lover exploring all your real and artificial selves. Dress your dogs and cats with as many sweater vests, booties and hats as you want; they’ll never come close to the hybrid human qualities that seductively inhabit the work of Beth Cavener Stichter. This might be, in part, because she views her stone sculptures as portraits — of people she has met briefly in passing or good friends or family. She doubles the uncanny moment by acknowledging that these creatures are self-portraits as well, since the very act of interpreting another’s actions, facial expressions, and intentions says — and betrays — much more about our own fears and desires than the other person. We rarely acknowledge or intellectually wrestle with this flash-fiction judgment that we impose onto friends and strangers alike.
