Burnt Norton

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; neither from nor towards, at the still point, there the dance is...surrounded by a grace of sense, a white light still and moving..." In the space between breaths, or between notes of music, there is a nearly imperceptible pause; time seems to dissolve like light disappearing below the horizon. I have followed light for many years, and written in its language. Here, light is written without first looking through a lens. Rather, the light, “still and moving,” unveils spaces that remain after roots and leaves are gone.

~Stella Perez, Burnt Norton

East Coker

“In my beginning is my end. In succession / Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, / Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place / Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass...” This quartet is so rich in visuals for my work. Even though the above excerpt from the quartet, East Coker, was written in the early 1940s, there are so many applicable thoughts and images to inspire new combinations in the patchwork alignment of this collection of panels in this show.

The excerpt below has been important in some of the later work of this piece by reminding me of the feeling of air travel and how it relates to my experiences with map making. “In the knowledge derived from experience. / The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, / For the pattern is new in every moment / And every moment is a new and shocking / Valuation of all we have been.”

~ Jeff Del Nero, East Coker

The Dry Salvages

"The river is within us, the sea is all about us / The sea is the land's edge also, the granite Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses / Its hints of earlier and other creation" In this poem T.S. Eliot uses a group of small, rocky islands off the coast of Massachusetts known as The Dry Salvages to set up water as a metaphorical image of humanity and circular time. Eliot asks us to consider humanity as water, as an entity with a unified subconscious and memory that produce mythic structures.

In the same way that the rivers flow into the sea, there is a connection to all of mankind within each man. But if we just accept simply drifting upon the sea, we will end up broken by those very structures. Just as there is no true mastery of time, there is also no escape. The uncertain voyage of humanity requires faith, prayer, and hope. Time destroys but it also preserves, and just as there is no mastery there is also no escape. Just as we can neither escape nor romanticize the river nor can we master the past. The uncertain voyage of humanity requires faith, prayer, and hope.

~ Michael Largent, The Dry Salvages

Little Gidding

Ash on an old man's sleeve / Is all the ash the burnt roses leave? / Dust in the air suspended Marks the place where a story ended. / Dust inbreathed was a house- / The walls, the wainscot and the mouse, / The death of hope and despair, / This is the death of air. Fire is the end and beginning of life.

Fire is the source of a new beginning, just like a phoenix that dies with dust and is reborn with flame, life can be reborn in the same manner. The soul sheds the dust of sin and is reborn with the fire of Christ. Fire is the way to breathe in new life.

~ Jason Emmons, Little Gidding