The same scene I paint over and over in all sizes and mediums. Always in the same colors. Acrylic on board 30″ x 20″ Mary Lee Mattison 2018 “The Phoenix Rises… Again” Acrylic on board 30″ x 20″ Mary Lee Mattison 2017
From within the black void, my radiant consciousness stirs. This flutter kindles a smoldering ember, fragile as the wisp of smoke that gently undulates around me. For I am the Ember! Flames erupt and transform me from glowing, white-coated ash to deep crimson to scarlet to yellow to blinding light that pushes back the darkness. I am now crackling flames dancing wildly beneath the night sky. Scorching heat forces me up and up and up but I cannot escape the inferno. I am the Inferno! My incandescent wings unfold into a molten crescent against the luminous, eastern sky. I suddenly burst above the horizon, my aura a blossoming flower of fire! Yes! I am Reborn. I am Rebirth. I am new life pulsing with potential promise. I am the Sunbird. I am the Phoenix!
(A little dramatic, I admit, but this is resurrection, baby. Immortality is big stuff!)
I am associated with the rising sun because I symbolize a new beginning. A new day. A new chance. I am life after hope has died. I am the spark of creation rising from nothing but the aromatic ashes and singed feathers of my own funeral pyre. (Which I built myself, when I saw my death was near.)
I have other avian incarnations the Chinese Feng-Huang, personification of the primordial force of the heavens, I have the head and the comb of a pheasant and the tail of a peacock. The usually imaginative Egyptians saw me as a heron. The times were big on embalming, so their myths had me taking a moment to embalm my own remains in an egg of myrrh. Then toting it up to Heliopolis (‘The City of the Sun.) to splat my egg upon the altar of the Sun god Re. I don’t have patience for that today. My myths all insist that there can be just one of me at a time! I have only ONE long day. (which is either 500 or 1461 years, depending on who you ask.) I ignite your creative fire with my dazzling display and fortuitous feathers of flame. Pop Corn Sutton (Famous bootlegger) Acrylic on Board 30″ x 20″ Copyright Marylee Mattison 2014
The Old Barge in the Merrimack River harbor. Used to launch the fireworks towards the drawbridge during the yearly Yankee Homecoming Celebrations. Watercolor/ink. Newburyport, MA. ‘The Great Rocks’ Chelmsford Town Forest 20″ x 30″. Acrylics. (Blog post link.)“Abandoned Mill Building”- Lowell, MA. 20″ x 30″. Acrylics.“Forgotten Box” Abandoned Mill Building, Lowell, MA. 20″ x 30″. AcrylicsDerelict Millbuilding “Cellar” 20″ x 30″. Acrylics Abandoned mill, Lowell, MA
