This week I have been disheartened by the passing of icons. In particular, since I found out about David Bowie on Monday I’ve been puttering around my apartment in a kind of stunned contemplation that’s gone something like, “Really? Really. No, really really? Really? Really.” I watched my favorite & most inspirational [to me] movie Labyrinth; I’ve listed to all my Bowie tunes; I even made a secret Pinterest board of David Bowie, though he & Alan Rickman have been on my Excellent Male Noses board for some time. My friends left condolences on my Facebook page when they found out. I thought I was getting better, but then discovering Alan Rickman’s passing, also of cancer & also at the age of 69, that mood has been reset, though more of an indignant kind of way. Imaging reading a really good book, & then getting to the chapter where your favorite characters die, except in real life.
Both men have held influences in the way I look at performances & art. I could listen to both of them all day for a month. I could watch them for a week, though I would have to admit I’d have trouble sitting in place for more than an hour at a time for entertainment. I am grateful for modern media, so that both of them can continue to perform, inform, & inspire even without their physical presence.
The heading image is an illustration in gouache I made for a color theory class in 2011, depicting a scene from Labyrinth, starring David Bowie.