Desire

Title: Desire

Size: 16"w x 16"h x 1.5"d (gallery-wrap; sides are painted black)

Medium: Oil on canvas

Technique: Finger painted

Date: 2006

Story: Emily Dickinson wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers," but I think Hope is just Desire with its clothes on.

Desire, in all its forms, can drive us forward and drive us under; it makes the world go 'round and makes us run in circles. It's one of the eternal forces at work--more basic than love and just as primal as death.

Swooping into our hearts, or piercing us from afar with an arrow, or standing by our side and stabbing us with a golden spear, the winged messengers and agents of the cosmos deliver us towards rapture and divine knowledge, or implosive destruction.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Eros (or Cupid, respectively), was the god of desire and married to Psyche, a mortal woman whose name means "soul" or "mind." In this union lies the secret to self-mastery: we are the falconers to our soaring wants.

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