Statuesque
For Pinkie, who probably expected something else.
For Pinkie, who probably expected something else.
AspirationRowan Gillespie, 1995
As I turned down Love Lane this evening, I looked up to her. I usually do. Like Gillespie's lovers who never quite kiss, her title strikes me as cruel.
Aspiration.
For what can she aspire to but this?
Lithe and strong as her body may be, she'll never progress beyond her precarious cling. Never reach her fingertips over the edge of that flat roof, never raise her arms in relief, or triumph, and turn her face to watch the sun set over the city. She must be tired, I think, and lonely.
It was only when I looked for a photo of The Kiss for that post last April that I discovered her name, and began to think of her as tragic. Up to that point she had reminded me of Kiki Smith's Lillith, who I had seen in IMMA when I was studying art at school, and who had made an indelible impression on me as a 17 year old girl. Both women are sculpted in bronze and climbing the walls, but there their similarities end. Lillith is all that we fear, the dark female, a succubus. She leads us astray, serves her own needs and teases with lustful dreams.
Poor Aspiration does not dream, and is teased by impossibility. She can only hope.
Aspiration.
For what can she aspire to but this?
Lithe and strong as her body may be, she'll never progress beyond her precarious cling. Never reach her fingertips over the edge of that flat roof, never raise her arms in relief, or triumph, and turn her face to watch the sun set over the city. She must be tired, I think, and lonely.
It was only when I looked for a photo of The Kiss for that post last April that I discovered her name, and began to think of her as tragic. Up to that point she had reminded me of Kiki Smith's Lillith, who I had seen in IMMA when I was studying art at school, and who had made an indelible impression on me as a 17 year old girl. Both women are sculpted in bronze and climbing the walls, but there their similarities end. Lillith is all that we fear, the dark female, a succubus. She leads us astray, serves her own needs and teases with lustful dreams.
Poor Aspiration does not dream, and is teased by impossibility. She can only hope.
