Installation Photo by Ingrid Mida 2010
A Tear Bottle
Glass, wherein a Greek girl's tears
Once were gathered as they fell,
After these two thousand years
Is there still no tale to tell?
Buried with her, in her mound
She is dust long since, but you
Only yesterday were found
Iridescent as the dew.
Fashioned faultlessly, a form
Graceful as was hers whose cheek
Once against you made you warm
While you heard her sorrow speak.
At your lips I listen long
For some whispered word of her,
For some ghostly strain of song
In your haunted heart to stir.
But your crystal lips are dumb,
Hushed the music in your heart:
Ah, if she could only come
Back again and bid it start!
Long is Art, but Life so brief!
And the end seems so unjust:
This companion of her grief
Here to-day, while she is dust!
Frank Dempster Sherman 1896
Glass, wherein a Greek girl's tears
Once were gathered as they fell,
After these two thousand years
Is there still no tale to tell?
Buried with her, in her mound
She is dust long since, but you
Only yesterday were found
Iridescent as the dew.
Fashioned faultlessly, a form
Graceful as was hers whose cheek
Once against you made you warm
While you heard her sorrow speak.
At your lips I listen long
For some whispered word of her,
For some ghostly strain of song
In your haunted heart to stir.
But your crystal lips are dumb,
Hushed the music in your heart:
Ah, if she could only come
Back again and bid it start!
Long is Art, but Life so brief!
And the end seems so unjust:
This companion of her grief
Here to-day, while she is dust!
Frank Dempster Sherman 1896
Installation Notes:
In this installation inspired by the Victorian mourning ritual and poem above, I have captured bits of ephemera from both my mother's life and my artwork in Mason jars, encapsulating her life and my sorrow in parallel. The photos shown above were digitally restored and printed onto organza creating a ghost like illusion when back-lit.