Look, good swaying people, good people with good vision, good eyes that see and see and see! Look at us! Visualize the vision we bring to you from upstairs! There is a long lady upstairs. Standing sideways but gazing at you…black hair, black eyebrows, red lips, red dress. Imagine her into existence before you, paint like flowing flesh and flesh like flowing paint. Imagine a glowing flowing long red dress like a tall waterfall! See us! See Émilie Charmy! Bring her paint before you, as we sing and dance her into existence before you. This is incantation. This is the charm of Émilie Charmy! Charmed by Charmy! Bring her before you! Visualize, touch the vision, feel the force of the long red dress like a tall waterfall. Stroke your imagination. Émilie Charmy is here among you. Free! Frank! Forceful! Questioning! Parisian! Brave, free, frank, female…strong in paint, strong In flesh, strong in frankness, forthright before you, paint flowing like a waterfall, flesh flowing like paint, a long red dress as tall as a waterfall. Visualize her freedom, her frankness, her force, her questioning black eyes, her appraising black eyebrows, the black heaven of her black hair, her freedom. Brave, free, frank, female. Visualize her intelligent desire. She is appraising you. She questions you. You question her. You judge her joy. She judges your joy. Joy judges joy. Freedom judges freedom. Paint forever fresh! Vigorous before you. The vigor of questions, the vigor of your glances. You and she exchange freedom. A dance of questioning. Feel the dance of questioning. Look. Feel what you see. Feel her questions looking at you. You look. You feel the red tall waterfall of the long fresh dress. The freshness of the long red dress. The freshness of the questioning eyes. Her force, her joy, her intelligent desires! Feel the flow of her ferocious sexy goodness. Sexy intelligence. As fresh as flesh. As fresh as paint. As fresh as the long red dress like a tall waterfall. Follow the flow!
You and she and we exchange dances, glances, charged and charmed by the strong smart woman upstairs, now before you here in vigorous vision. Wave your red dresses, the red dresses of your imagination. Shake out your red scarves like the flags of intelligent desire. Shake out your red scarves. You and she and we are incantation, together shaping enchantment, the charm of Émilie Charmy. Chant and vision must be shaped by intelligent desire, by the shaping dance of joy judging joy, painted eyes and flesh eyes together making enchantment. We charm Émilie Charmy into existence before us. Slightly laughing she teaches us her spells and helps us to exist. Incantation! We chant our vision into existence, we charm our souls into vigor, into flow we can feel, flowing with the frank freshness of Émilie Charmy. This is a healthy trance, a democratic trance, unforced, strongly amiable. Our magic spell is taught us by a rare Parisian, a woman breaking into the heaven of art, the heaven of flesh and soul. Woman painter teaches us her bravery, her intelligent desire. Even her still lifes explode into wild rainbow health! Her parlors where women seemingly do middleclass things are changing before our eyes into strange rooms where strange love resides. O enigmatic atmosphere of her parlors where form transforms itself and transforms you. What are you watching….a parlor or a happy bordello! Victorian décor or paint shaping desire revealed. This is a salubrious trick. What we thought was middleclass is really intense in its calm.
Desire revealed! Not really just another parlor. A room for desire! Unafraid! There is no fear in Émilie Charmy! She unchained herself by her charm. Free, frank, brave woman… Parisian joyousness, smart, strong, amused. She is amused to reveal, to show, to judge and shape her intelligent desire. She forms us, we form her, in mutual erotic intelligence. We all now exist, paint and flesh and strong smart woman…Parisian in the era where ANYTHING AT ALL could be conceived and brought into palpably amazing being. Sway your red dresses! Wave your red scarves! Dance your healthy trance! Let us exchange trances! Red lips chant!
And all this goodness occurs approved of by the shining steel cloud of the wavy Jean Arp sculpture curvaceous nearby. Jean Arp approves and shines his approval upon us. We are observed by that steel cloud of a wavy sculpture holding a wavy hole through which we see reality. Art as curvy as nature! The steel cloud bounces blessing upon us like sunlight! Raise up your red lips, red scarves!
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| Émilie Charmy, “Portrait,” oil on canvas, 1921. Courtesy of Pamela K. and William A. Royall, Jr. © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: Travis Fullerton |
