Yesterday, I again was struggling with being caught between art and science. Often I search the Internet trying to find links to people who might understand where I’m coming from.
A while back Robin, my webmaster, labeled my Guiltless Shells as Limbo Shells. So fitting! Describes my shells and me. At the same time.
You see, Robin is one person who gets it. That my shells are caught in limbo. Just like I am.
So I decided to look the word limbo up. For clues. And when I did, the first ten at least, were links for this movie coming out April 30. Four days from now!
“ Limbo "is a movie about four gentlemen. One from Syria, one from Afghanistan and two from Nigeria. The four of them refugees who find themselves together on a small Scottish island. Awaiting approval to join Scottish society. A true Limbo that has become an enormous dilemma for so many people in our world right now.
It’s written and directed by a person who saw the situation first hand in Syria. And found himself motivated to write the screenplay and labor to get it filmed. A true hero in my eyes. A person who would appreciate the screenplay I’ve found myself motivated to write also. So I realize he’d see my efforts as heroic also.
So this is a time for me to share what my Limbo looks like. Hoping that when the movie gets notice, the link to my own Limbo situation would get exposure too.
I’ve always felt like the ugly duckling. A swan cygnet who finds herself surrounded by a float of goslings. When I was young, I didn’t get it. But at the age of 77, I can see that this seems to be my burden/calling.
When I married my first husband, a full blood Tlingit Indian from Alaska, I had no idea what was ahead. A red heart in the body of a white woman. Opposites. And my husband struggling with the same issue. But in reverse.
There is a Star Trek: Voyager episode about Tuvok and Neelix uniting them in a transporter accident making a new person of the two of them. A really good one to watch. That’s how I “see” myself. A combination of many bothered. Culture, religion, art, science.
I remember a class on Learning I took back in the 80’s at Grand Valley State. A psychology course. And the professor saying to me after reading my essays. “You have so many more hues within you that come out through your words. At the time, I gave this little thought. But now I know what he was revealing to me.
So this comes out in my writing now and my art. Most obviously exposed in my shells.
And the Sanibel-Captiva Shell Fair of 2001! Right in my face. Finally aware. What Limbo was all about. What I’ve been living my whole life. In lots of ways. But so clear at the Show.
As a child, I collected seashells. And it was the science that appealed to me. I loved their beauty, but it was their lives I ached to study. That never left me.
So when quit live-collecting in 1987, I lost the chance to collect and buy specimen Gastropoda. So, the nudge to TRY to form a long spiraled seashell was coming from the science side of me.
When I found myself able to express the shell of a snail, without killing It, it was the intellectual part of me that realized what I’d been able to do.
Here’s two examples. Minerals are collected and studied just like Mollusks. With polymer clay, there are many people able to create faux minerals. Ones that look real! Just like my shells. And these people are bringing into being a “mineral” that can be collected and used just like my shells. Get people to connect with the science behind the natural ones.
And then there’s Fordite! Not a natural mineral. But looks just like agates. Because of paint, layers of paint, baked in the furnaces of Detroit car companies. Someone noticed this and saw a new “mineral” in its own right.
So you could go on the internet and find lots of images of polymer “minerals” and much Fordite. But when it comes to the snail shell, I’m the only one able to say, “They Look Real!”
I get it. My words don’t make much sense. I can’t put this into words. What it’s like for me. To find myself able to form one of a kind shells. That can do anything a real shell can do. And I can’t get them known. Properly.
At The Shell Fair, I realized that My Shells wanted to be recognized by the science community. Not just the art community. And even the art community, we didn’t fit there either. You know when your out of place. Not where you should be. That was me.
So Limbo it is. Why I said in the earlier essay, my shells and I belonged in the Lobby. Between the science exhibits and art exhibits.
Can you see why this movie means so much to me? Speaks for me! How I feel! Why I need to contact the writer/director.
Writing this today, I recognize the movie speaks for people like myself also.
Pink Eagle (Annie Olson)
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