“Minotaur Five”

Description

Below the artist shares how the Minotaur first appeared to him:

It began in Italy, when I was studying abroad.  I was reading Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung and spent the majority of my free-time exploring the labyrinth that is Venice, memorizing the streets, and writing poetry.  I carried with me a stick of charcoal to mark the walls, so I could find my way back home.

One night, I was writing poetry in San Marco, in front of the library.  It was getting late and the main crowd had died down.  Mistaking me for an Italian poet the last of the straggling tourists peered over my shoulder and asked to have their picture taken with me in the mysterious ambiance of the piazza.  I didn’t mind, in fact, I reveled in it and didn’t speak, only nodded and smiled to communicate.  A couple was dancing in the campo to the last viola playing on the other end.  I continued writing.

As I wrote, something stood behind me.  I turned to look, but nothing.  Again, something behind me, something large and massive, cashew shaped- bulk on top, slender on the bottom.  It felt ten foot tall.  I kept turning, looking around to find nothing.  Venice is strange enough, with the religious imagery and rotting corpses of Kings around every corner.  Especially at night, with the vacant narrow streets and masks reflecting in the glass behind the bars of the closed shops.  Let alone, this invisible shadow.

Convincing myself nothing was there, I stood and began home.  I wanted to run through the streets, but there was this feeling that the thing would chase me.  So I walked briskly, trying to divert my attention.  I felt like I was in a cinematic dream, it following me and moved awkwardly.  I kept hearing clicking noises, like high-heels on stone ground.  Every alley I passed, I looked down it expecting to find a beautiful Italian woman wearing high heels and stumbling from a good night out with friends, but there were no women.  It followed me home and waited outside.

For about a week, it followed me.  Day and night.  I was distressed, but became less scared of it.  It seemed less and less threatening and more like it wanted something, but I didn’t know how to approach it.

One night, walking home I caught a glimpse of it, not with my eyes, but as a kind of mental picture.  I was approaching The Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, which is a large church in close proximity to my apartment.  There is an alley behind it.  I walked past the alley and turned to look- there at the little water fountain, half-kneeling and sitting, was a Minotaur with child’s hands and sadness in his eyes, drinking from the spout by cupping his hands.  He looked at me and I wanted to cry.  His eyes were so big and black, glossy and mysterious.  I ran home and immediately drew it.  That was the first of the series, Minotaur Five.  After that, he was gone.