Thursday, 21 July 2016

The reading stopped at Bloom's two lines: 

BLOOM

Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I … (15.2430).

Catherine Meyer sends a painting for this week's entry and comments:

For my picture I have taken the title «the end of the world» with the description of the two paragraphs («a rocket rushes up the sky and bursts…», 15.2174), and it goes with the next stage directions («...over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah’s voice,…», 15.2183).

The End of the World, a tow-headed octopus, is depicted as a man’s and woman’s head in the form of the Three Legs of Man, the three feet dancing the keel row. The zenith and nadir line is part of the thigh, out of which the three feet come. Elijah is up in the sky with the banner of old glory. The scotch accent and the kilt have their rendering in the pattern of a scottish fabric. For once the dreadful twoheaded octopus shows up in two „normal“ profiles and the fearful proclamation of the end of the world appears as a white bursting star. The trumpery insanity is disguised as Elijah.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2016

Thursday, 14 July 2016

The reading stopped at the end of a stage direction: … and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.) (15.2153)

Catherine Meyer sends in her painting with these words:

We have entered the brothel now and the depiction of the brothel-room was the eyecatcher for my imagination. it so happens that I was looking through my old book about toulouse-lautrec searching for a picture with the title „chocolat“. the dancer and clown appear also in ulysses (you may remember) and were one of lautrec's models when he made sketches in the irish and american bar in paris. thanks to lautrec I immediately got the atmosphere of dim and filthy surroundings. Based on the long stage directions I tried to catch the intimate interior.

As in the text, “a shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. ... The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids.” Kitty Ricketts sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantlepiece (15.2040 ff.). (my own painted mirror is handing on the table).

I was very entranced when I found the „chocolat picture“!!!

Catherine Meyer © Zürich, 2016

Thursday, 7 July 2016

The group read through to the end oft he begetting list: “et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel” (15.1869).

After this, artist and long-standing member of the reading groups Cahterine Meyer, sent this illustration with the following comment: 

I loved the idea of the “new womanly man“ and chose to render the episode of Dr Dixon reading the bill of health. Bloom is in the centre of the picture as a rather quaint fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. He has an arched mouth but with no lipstick yet, and the feature seems to be very harmless. A good man on the whole. But somehow he feels a pang of conscience and, therefore, has to scourge himself every Saturday.

The last of the three painted Blooms shows him as a new womanly man, who is about to have a baby. The crowd in the background and Dr Dixon at the very left of the painting  frame the centre in dark colours so that the light is on the three central characters.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016

Thursday, 30 June 2016

The reading stopped where Alexander J. Dowie ends his proclamation with, “Caliban!” (15.1760).

Catherine Meyer, working on a image to render some of what was read, sends this sketch – a “first step of the drawing”, as she calls it – and a few words:

I have been deliberating some time about how to put a scene packed with so much information (stage directions) on paper. Maybe the following idea could be a solution for more of this kind of stage directions in the circe episode. 

I pencilled all the characters and objects mentioned in the passage (a cannon-shot, the man in the macintosh disappearing …). I chose a thick watercolour paper that leaves the option to watercolour the drawing afterwards.

I will think about how i am going to colour the sketch. Actually, it is already more than a sketch. We will see.

Otherwise, i must say, i like the circe chapter. It gives me a whole range of inputs.

© Catherine Meyer, Zürich 2016