Searching for His Wife Penelope
MEDIUM:
Cradled wood panel-assemblage: collage, molding paste, gauze, glass marbles, acrylic paint, fabric covered panel.
ARTWORK:
20″ x 16″ x 1″
FRAME:
Satin black finished wood.
21″ x 17″ x 3″
DRAFT
Artist Note: The Homeric epic told in the Odyssey places Odysseus (ruler of the Greek island kingdom of Ithaca) after the Trojan Wars beginning his ten year perilous voyage home…where his wife Penelope waits for him in Ithaca. During this voyage his ship is destroyed by a thunderbolt and he becomes stranded on the island of the nymph Calypso. He remained a captive on this island for seven years before returning home to Penelope his faithful wife. 1.
Artwork: The artwork places a modern Odysseus outward bound in space searching for is wife Penelope on the planet Ithaca. The risks facing NASA’s astronauts in space are no less risky then those faced by Odysseus.
Footnotes: 1. This abbreviated account about Odysseus was adapted from the Encyclopedia Mythica by James Hunter, 2005. Refer: Boardman, J. Griffin, J. Oswyn, M.: The Oxford History of the Classical World, Oxford University Press, Oxford/N.Y., 1986. & Grant, Michael: Myths of the Greeks & Romans, Mentor Books, The New American Library, N.Y. 1962.
Note: The Odysseus rocket ship is a drawing of a sculpted object belonging to the Istanbul Archeology Museum in Turkey