© 1997 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with platinum
11” x 7” x ¼”

Adaptation of Velasquez’s Sybil with Tabula Rasa




Say it, Sybil.
The obvious needs to be said.
Make it plain upon tablets:
     How long for what's written to be known?
          Her lost profile's pressing potential
          points to pentimenti in black wax.

Try an indelible magic marker, Sybil.
Which is more reusable:
     Now, then, or later?

The tabula rasa
awaits the moving finger
     in the hush
     in the bloom
     in the bugged building
where spies scribble on magic slates
and rip off a clean sweep.

          Relinquish it will surely come engraved on your heart, lovey
          you had nothing to do with it
          when it seems slow pay attention to the verb tense.
          Write, then lift films.


Linear Pointillism

© 1997 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with platinum and gold
7 ½” x 9 ¼” x 2 ¼”

Adaptation of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte

Grande Jatte shimmered
atop the museum stairs,
flinging dots like a wet dog,
burned flashbulbs into my eyeballs
and stuck to the roof of my mouth
as communion wafers.
     In my closet I drew bustles and monkeys
     and weeney dogs
     with real French conte crayons.

My arithmetic teacher said
you can make a line
between any two dots but
she was never hit with
a bag of confetti.
She never knew that
the potential of linear pointillism
lies where those lines cross,
as our shadows do, full of petit points,
all looking to the left for water.

The art historian said
Seurat’s psychology of line
was better than Isaiah’s.
     Who deals with their intersections?
          That hard little spot
          where art and love and life meet and mesh
          and fight it out?

Beyond the web of brushstrokes
doodle dialers tweak knobs,
Sunday painters go dot to dot
and all those pixels become commas.

The preacher said
Death is not a period
it is only a comma,
like gentle semi-colons strolling
through sacred groves;

          For now, when I shake
          my Etch-a-Sketch
          Atlantis appears,
          prays, and ponders
          the difficulties of curves.

The Iconography of Beard and Hair (Wooly Willy)

© 1997 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed and tinted porcelain
9" x 7" x ¼"

     The maker of “Wooly Willy” apparently wanted his 1950’s toy to express the face of “everyman”. He did considerable research with images to get the benign, smiley, fat white-faced Willy. He is a jovial, non-threatening guy. The magnetic personality.
     Balding or hairy, Willy keeps smiling. It is interesting how our perception of him changes with the hair. It reminded me of the evolution of the image of Jesus. Many of the earlier images of him, in the third to sixth century, show him as a beardless, short haired youth, usually posed as the Good Shepherd. Art historians credit this to the adaptation of ancient Greek figures of Hermes who was often shown with a lamb on his shoulders. During the fourth century Asian influences gave Jesus a beard. The earlier youthful portraits began to appear immature in comparison to this serious face. Since Jesus was first of all a good Jew, he probably wore the full beard and long hair that were customary at the time. That is the picture we’ve inherited anyway, and some of us balk when it varies too much. I wonder how different our reaction is from that of people centuries ago, those who were illiterate and depended upon visual iconography to relay meaning. The depiction of beard, hair, and haloes carried important meaning. A slight change of the magic wand might change the person’s entire character, according to the manufacturer. Willy’s the man “for all ages”; is Jesus?
     This Willy has some telltale signs of his past: remember how bits of magnetic shavings invariably got stuck somewhere on the face? Here they speckle the forehead. Perhaps scars from a crown of thorns. Maybe just the measles.

See, before God I am as you are: I too was formed from a piece of clay. (Job 33:6)
Remember that you fashioned me like clay; and will you turn me to dust again?
(Job 10:9)



Wooly Willy has a wand
and a magnetic personality.
He knows it is not easy
being the puller,
holding the field at bay.
          Nor is it easy being iron dust
                    to dust
          hovering around for autographs,
          plopped into uncertain eyebrows
          or nose hairs
          or haloes
          by some childlike force
          that creates the Good Shepherd
          out of Hermes.

Still, wayward bits resist and cling
to his forehead,
mock his big nose,
and blur the iconography
of beard and hair.

          Who transplanted your character?
          Face is everyman
          and you too
          are made of clay.