Peig

This was done from a newspaper photo of my friend, Peig.

For those of you who don't know this - when you scan a newspaper photo, it comes out with a plaid pattern across it. It was a lot of frustrating work, removing the plaid. In the original, Peig is on a ladder, scrubbing down huge stone lions that now, (inappropriately), sit at the sidewalk on Granville St. with plaques announcing the University's founding date.

I don't know how to describe Peig, herself. Except to talk about her graduating show. It was a single, life size, life-like sculpture of a woman in unfired clay.

Walking into the gallery, a stark white room, you see nothing else but this, spotlighted - a woman laying on the ground embracing a real tree trunk. Her arms are wrapped around it. One leg is across it. The expression of sadness on her face and the longing in the embrace are so palatable that it knocks the breath out of your body. You have no doubt that you've crossed the line from the everyday-world into a sacred place. It's not that the woman is naked - but that the feeling conveyed is stripped of every defense, every excuse, every explanation.

When the show ended - Peig had thought she'd like to take the piece to the woods and let the clay slowly dissolve back into the earth. She said that while she worked on it, it took over - it stopped being her creation and she merely took orders. I wish I had the words to tell you how powerful it was.

That is Peig. And this is my only picture of her. It's called, "Peig holds the Moon in Place." A very small tribute to such a large spirit.

Click to enlarge.