Panthea Daily Study

White lilies and panthea moth. Charcoal and white pastel on Mylar drafting film, 16 x 12", in vintage frame. The white lily was the signature flower for Oscar Wilde, and I also consider it my own signature flower. I’ve used it as a logo since I started my career as an artist, and also have used the lily often in the Black Butterfly muse series. I love the symbolism of peace and purity.

Wilde writes of lilies in his poem “Panthea.” Wilde’s beliefs were Pantheistic, characterized by oneness with nature. The word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan ('all') and theos ('God'). Thus pantheism means 'All is God'.
Pantheism is the religious belief that Nature is divine (God) and we humans are part of the One, interconnected whole. It is in realizing our connection to the One Universe (Nature, God, Brahman, Tao, Space) that we find truth, spiritual fulfillment and solace. Pantheists usually deny the existence of a personal God (theism) and creationism (a separate God who created the world from nothing).

Many philosophers, scientists, poets and artists have identified themselves with pantheism since antiquity. Spinoza (Ethics, 1673), Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oscar Wilde, Henri Matisse and Albert Einstein are some famous pantheists.

There is a moth by the same name, and I like the idea of the dusky moth with the white flower.

From "Panthea" by Oscar Wilde

Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
From passionate pain to deadlier delight,-
I am too young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.

For sweet, to feel is better than to know,
And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse of passion-youth's first fiery glow,-
Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:
Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy,
Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love, and eyes
to see!

Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale
Like water bubbling from a silver jar,
So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,
That high in heaven she hung so far
She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune,-
Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late
and laboring moon.

White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,
The fallen snow of petals where the breeze
Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam
Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavor
Enough for thee, dost thou desire more?
Alas! the Gods will give naught else from their
eternal store….

"3 Graces" triptych

Charcoal on Mylar film, side pieces, 20 x 16" center piece, 30×20." From the "Black Butterfly: The Muse" series.

The 3 Graces: Aglaia (radiance) Euphrosyne (joy) Thalia (flowering) It was the poet Hesiod who named the Graces in his Theogony: "Then Eurynome, Ocean's fair daughter, bore to Zeus the three Graces, all fair-cheeked, Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and shapely Thalia; their alluring eyes glance from under their brows, and from their eyelids drips desire that unstrings the limbs."

From reference photos of San Francisco groupies, 1968 - 69, by Rolling Stone magazine photographer Baron Wolman.



3 Graces ~ section 1 ~ Aglaia (radiance): groupie Karen Seltenrich, San Francisco, Nov. 1968. Image was used in a New York Times article “When we tell you what a Groupie is, will you really understand?”



3 Graces ~ section 2 ~ Thalia (flowering): groupie Sally Mann, San Francisco, Nov. 1968. (No relation to the photographer of the same name) Sally married Jefferson Airplane's Spencer Dryden in 1970.



3 Graces ~ section 3 ~ Euphrosyne (joy): groupie “HARLOW”, San Francisco, Nov. 1969.

Here is a quote from Baron about the groupies:

"As concert promoter Bill Graham has given me all access to any of the concerts he produced, I spent quite a bit of time backstage with the bands, their roadies and their women. What fascinated me were the lengths to which the women, the groupies, went to prepare themselves for their backstage appearances. Because I also wanted an excuse to photograph them, I suggested to Jann they might make an interesting story. He agreed and Rolling Stone Magazine No. 27 became known as "the groupie issue." It was widely promoted, read and commented upon, even turned into a book." - Baron Wolman

I saw these photos in an old book picked up at a resale shop. I fell in love with the groupies, and Baron was so gracious to allow me to use them for the drawings. The feminine effect of the references are enhanced with the flowers and butterflies. I decided to draw Sally Mann, the subject of the centerpiece, holding the lilies, as she married soon after the photo was taken. The center piece is considerably larger than the side pieces, on these the flowers and butterflies are from a pattern I saw on scented drawer liner paper. It's all about peace & love & hippie-ness, baby. :)

While the rest of the models I've used in the series are in the arts themselves, I was intrigued with the idea of groupies - and their intrigue with rock & roll artists of the late 1960's. It seems to me they were using their own bodies and persona as an art form to attract their artistic "muses."

I guess you could consider some of the works in my Black Butterfly series "Cover Tunes." I believe the borrowed references are vital to the series to relate the idea of inspiration, and its relation to talent and celebrity. These "tunes" well deserve a stylish, honorable replay. Many thanks to the talented people who have loaned their vision of the muse to aid me in illustrating my ideas.