1,

For three years I’ve been sleeping on the back of my father, Centaurus

He lay down and I rested my head on his body. Now he’s wakening me.

 

2,

The lightning has come, tearing up neither trees, nor earth, not destroying bell towers, only my heart did it wreck.

I am leaving, my friend, and time cannot be soothing, it is only a trusted companion for us.

I am leaving, my friend, and these are some lines for your work, a few musings of mine.

 

3,

You are a she-ogre, you abandon your husband and children you flee with ropes, newspaper clippings, tools and more, so to create your works in the forest, larger than life, useless; they mixed up with nature, and yet obvious.

Nobody is allowed to near them, not even your ogre, nor your little ogre either.

For them you have love, after all, but now you embroider in space.

 

4,

You are resting by now, your growl has abated; you welcome your friends, outwardly pleasant and calm, you offer beverages with blood, citron and scent of jasmine, yet it is only your dream. When awakening, you don’t wish to smell human flesh.

 

5,

You smell animal whiffs, it’s the wind, the black cat is running, up, on your works, it is wrecking your hieroglyphics, then the crocodile appears thrusting open his jaws, showing ravenous teeth.

A pretentious lion looks at you from afar, a giraffe draws nigh, attempting a kiss on your cheek.

You feel their love, their smell is different from yours yet akin, sated with soil, sun, humid, and mossy you decide to open up.

Then you wrap yourself up in a cobalt blue cloth and away you flee, far from them, to another place, another work.

And now you are in a desert.

 

6.

Now you’re alone and decide to begin a new work, you set yourself to a new endeavor; you hear a jingle bell and a grunt, with a big fire feeding on the air.

An old hermit wades on, followed by a piglet, the fire is growing on its left side, up to the sky it greets you, its gaze lingering on the ground and then vanishes in a cloud of sand.

And you, unrepentant, you keep on creating in the thundering storm transforming the landscape,

you curl up in your veil, do not breath any sand, your work is a cavern which protects and saves you,

after the tempest a camel arrives, you mount on its back and flee to new places.

 

7,

The sea, you collect shells in the sand, tree trunks, the wreck of a ship, fragments of shinbones belonging to some old corsair and get set to a new work: The boat of departure.

A sea-brim peeps from the sea, now and then, a dolphin greets you from afar,

a whale calf besprinkles a fountain for you,

and you make a sail from your fading cape, the color of ashes by now, and leave on the sea.

The sea is now a plank of still water, it bursts open, and now it’s all winds and storms,

you try to govern your boat, feel like you’re Drake the corsair, and yet you can’t govern,

you abandon yourself to your destiny and gaze up to the inclement sky.

This you don’t know, but a mermaid, helped by a triton, fetches you and they bring you away from the storm.

You’ve arrived on the pack of the North Pole, a place of loneliness and peace.

 

8,

Light, dazzled you want to sculpt ice, right this moment, yet there are no tools, your hands are your tool but they bleed, you find the relics of a 1928 expedition to the Pole by Nobile,

an ice ax, a lamp, long nails and your beloved ropes, now you are able to create.

A narwhal arrives, takes off its long horn and gives it to you. And now, my friend, you can sculpt, at night, the white bear covers your body so that you don’t die of exposure, the Inuit arrive, too, with their scents and oil lamps so to brighten your long night, you pound on the ice, night and day until the long seasons come.

You carry on, never content, now rest.

 

9,

Now rest, my friend on the body of my father the Centaur whom I have set free and you carry on with my dream.

 

Today for you Susanne Kessler, May the 24th 2015, Pentecosta

 

Vincenzo Mazzarella, Gallery owner in Rome, collectionist, Performance artist, friend of the artist, dedicates one of his last texts to Kessler, published in the book “Susanne Kessler – Framing space”, 2015.