her words ran out
and // I wanted to give her more
and couldn’t
and knew it
so I scattered pens
I democratized the lines
to let her complete in the reader’s mind
I saw a veil
where her throat should be
a veil
from before the one that Jesus tore
barely breathing &
peaking out
and behind it all
was everyone
advertising answers
for grief barely begun
I couldn’t tell if she was holding it all up
or taking it down
or if she had integrated it
into who she is now
the strangle
that potential holds
the string
I see // what I could be
it gets away
& lower mystery
is there // something
I know
it leads
to who I could be
down there
must be my soul
my heart
or something
connecting
everything
finally offering
meaning
look // I learned
to never look
up // “a head down keeps the world at bay”
“in clouds we mistake
hope for pain” they say
the Greeks put the gods up there
the Greeks were so confused
we know now
we keep our heads down
we dream the rational way
follow this string
to be all
all they say I can
all they say
I will
all I have to be
in my mind
christ is babe
or he is dying
he is 30 and calling my friends and I
a brood of vipers
in our temples
in my mind christ is happy
smiling, or something, all the time
but
he would not be as good a god
if he knew not what it is like
to be a young
confused and suffering
to scrape ones knee and know the world is ending
to bump our heads and bleed
I had never been as young as I was
the day my 30 years of plans
came crumbling in
& when they did
I found myself born all over again
I held out my hands and looked to my side
on his knees, I saw the divine
a child surrounded
I saw him young
as young as me
scared, and weeping,
a facsimile of Gethsemane
the spirit above and below him
a child’s face
& a child’s tears
going by the name of GOD
I knew
that he knew
the intensity of feeling
knowing something somewhere is holy
but not knowing where to find it
or what it could be
your face in your knees
hoping it’s an ocean
an ocean above and below
barely breathing
half hoping you’ll be swallowed
half hoping this very memory will be extinguished eventually
but what I saw in his boyish face
was space
to give my grief a proper name
and a place to stay
I wonder how often he tapped into the sorrow of the earth
and I wonder how often it overtook him
& so it was in the curling of his little body
that I knew he meant it
that I knew he could see
and understand completely
I’d always known I was never as hidden from him
as I think I intended to be
but for the first time in my life
that thought did not completely terrify me
(made for my creative community group)
brainstorming in Midjourney
(that’s a different project at the bottom.. I do a fair bit simultaneously tbh)
trying new terms
trying in DALL-E2 to see what I get
realized I wanted to explore how I relate to Christ, to see myself in Him just as a way of exploring the idea of being made in GOD’s image the idea of being the body of Christ
I liked the hair from one image but the face of another so I bring them into photoshop [not pictured] to combine the two.
(don’t have any photoshop pictures because I didn’t save the file, I tend to work quick and sorta scrappy, I just combined them, exported a png and plugged it into DALL-E2 to work with)
here you can see me trying again to see if DALL-E2 can do anything better with the hair lol.
Notice how the “original” image has the hair erased which tells DALL-E it can only work in that empty space. It then gives me four options to choose from.
by this point I’d combined the hair in photoshop myself and was trying to expand the canvas downward.
Again, you can see that I’m erasing while expanding.
DALLE-2 only technically works in squares so you sorta fenagle it, leaving in just enough parts of the image you already have in order to influence the style, then erasing parts you want it to generate.
here’s me finding the image I liked. I was struck because it looked like Judas to me and I loved the idea of exploring that relationship.
I interpreted it as Judas turning his back on Christs divinity. Which was already an idea I’d been exploring elsewhere. I forget the exact text prompts I was using but I was trying a lot of words like “atonement, divinity, saints” etc
just an example of the sea of options and choices
me finding first part of the lower half I liked
exploring variations
again just an example of deleting parts, adding prompts, and expanding the canvas downward.
[I then have to take these and merge them together in photoshop like little puzzle pieces] NOTE: DALLE-2 can merge/extend them sort of too in their workflow but it’s sometimes feels more limiting to me.
then I translate it onto big slabs of cardboard using a projector. I find the cardboard around the city on my walks. This was a big Samsung TV box I found and I liked the idea that it was made to carry a television (something that displays content and drowns us in advertisements/consumerism) and repurposing it to tell its own story, display and carry it’s own meaning and message. Also the relationship between the saints being themselves inside this consumerist product packaging, looking up at Christ who is ALSO packaged in it, and that this package is literally undone and opened up, etc.
I have more than a dozen of these so far but they aren’t posted anywhere online rn. if you want to follow this endeavor at all the best way is currently just my natanai.art instagram or the website which I haven’t been updating either..
nathanael.ink 