Last Night The Moon... (B52)
Catalogue Record
Collection
Maker
Ewan Clayton
Title
Last Night The Moon...
Made in
Brighton
Date
1994
Description
Wall hanging, framed in stained ash. Gouache and watercolours on black Fabriano paper. The poem reads: 'Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street. I took it as a sign to start singing. I fell up into the bowl of the sky, it broke. Everwhere falling, everywhere, nothing to do. Here is the new rule, rule for this season. Brake the wine glass, break the wine glass. Fall towards the glass blowers breath.'
Materials and techniques
Gouache and watercolours on black Fabriano paper. Design evolved in pencil and laid down with red wax "carbon" paper then freely written with a metal nib over the top of this framework using Windsor and Newton gouache and watercolours. The red wax underlining has been allowed to roll back the colour from certain areas and in the writing the nib was occasionally lifted on one or other side to give a nick into the edge of a letter - usually done to enliven the ajacent counter space.
Note taken from Maker file.
Note taken from Maker file.
Dimensions
length: 74cm
width: 110cm
Object number
B52
Category
Maker's statement
The letters are developed from medieval versals but are allowed great freedom to respond to the letters around them. I want the reader to be led into a dance, the poet was the originator of the Sufi's whirling dance. The layout recalls "who is the man who owns the crown", an inscription by David Jones. [No. 37 in N. Gray's book, "The Painted Inscriptions of David Jones" Gordon Fraser 1981]. The piece takes time to be read, the words are: Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street. I took it as a sign to start singing I fell up into the bowl of the sky, it broke. Everywhere falling, everywhere, nothing to do. Here is the new rule, [rule for this season] Break the wine glass, [break the wine glass] Fall towards the glass blowers breath. Brackets above indicate Clayton's own additions - brackets don't appear in the piece - to the translation of this poem by Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) made by Coleman Barks.