My dear, sweet Selma died. I wish you could have known her. As I write this I'm listening to Antony & The Johnson's song, Another World in which he sings: I need another world...I'm gonna miss my..." and it's melancholy and I'm already sad but it helps, you know? We all need another world especially when this world gives us such a heart break, such a challenge. It is perhaps like losing a child, certainly it's losing a dear friend. So music helps a bit. And it almost seems like poetry to me so I'm re-reading Patti Smith's autobiographical: Just Kids. It too is another world, a tale she tells beautifully, tenderly. In Patti's book she gives up her first baby, her friend Robert dies, that's major. That puts it into perspective for me and there's some comfort in the shared sense of personal pain. Oh my dear, sweet, Selma Lou.
I called Selma my little baby partly because she was round and soft and about the weight of a little baby but also because she would fall asleep in my arms or my lap as I would hum to her: hush little baby, don't you cry. She did that her whole life. And she was such a beautiful creature. I just thought her looks were astounding and Patty's too. Selma's sister, Patty died November 2008. Patty and Selma were named after Marge's sister's from the TV Simpsons for irony as my cats were the polar opposite of the Bouvier sisters. My cats had charming, sweet dispositions and beautiful coats : a gorgeous combination of tones and shades of grey on one and stark black and white on the other. They were a most wonderful studio presence for their esthetics alone. We did share an interspecies love affair of the most poetic sort so I guess they were my muses. If I can call upon memory they live still.
Patty and Selma were calm and cool models, photogenic, and appeared in more books and publications than I can remember off hand. They both hung around my studio. Selma was last photographed in my studio with a project that's still up. My project is finished and ready to ship but I've decided to wait before I write a full post with images for the project. I really want to have some pictures if my paintings installed. That should make a big difference, although, I think they look pretty good in my studio. Anyway I'm posting my last shots of Selma and I couldn't resist adding a couple more pictures of her in her youth. I had a book bound of pictures of Patty after she died. I should do the same for Selma.
