1993c_Hotel_Overture_Turner.txt

Division 1. Prologue  
Owner:        (Howard) Roice Nelson, III
Chapter I. Thoughts
View:         180 degrees
Type:         Interior with a view
Location:     Hotel Overture
Perspective:  1
Season:       Winter
Family:       Reflections of Home
Scales:       1
Time:         Daybreak
Concept:      Dreams
Interval:     1 hour in a Hotel in Germany

This painting is about choices, and like a symphonic overture, has themes from
all of the other paintings reflected in the glass (my intention is to have Ken
Turner add reflections from Heather's, Audrey's, Rachel's, and Matt's paintings
for the next Edition of Prime Words).  The original seven sketches were done
in the Hotel Novetel in Julich, Germany when doing some work for Landmark
Graphics with Professor Deitrich Welte.  There are images in the windows
(spiritual world) and objects in the room (physical world). Sometimes, when
traveling, the hotel rooms seem like a jail, where one looks out and sees
stars, which we are separated from by the window bars.  The act of doing
business is to harness our daydreams.  In the words of Richard Lovelace
(1618-1658):
 Stone walls do not a prison make,(1)
  Nor iron bars a cage,
 Minds innocent and quite take
  That for an hermitage;
 If I have freedom in my love,
  And in my soul am free,
 Angels alone that soar above
  Enjoy such liberty.
 (Lucasta, to Althea: From Prison, stanza 4
 (1) Stone walls a prisoner make, but not a slave. 
     Wordsworth [1770-1850], Humanity.

The contents are combined images, in that the furniture was from an actual
place, a very nice hotel in Bonn, Germany, but it was rearranged into the
format the artist wanted.  I left Marti in Florence, Italy, to get a visa to
travel to Saudi Arabia.  In Italy we had our picture taken (the foremost
reflection) walking int the Church of Santa Croche (1294-1443 A.D.) to attend
a concert sponsored by the European Association of Exploration Geophysicists
at their 1991 Convention.  (The EAEG motto is "Quaere et Invenies" (Seek and ye
shall find).)  

The painting is like a Flemish work, in that everything in it is a symbol of 
something.  All items in the room are metaphors and can stand on their own or
be grouped.  Notice the perspective is curved.  This is actually more accurate
than one point perspective.  The natural man is on the left and the opposite
way of thinking is on the right (note when the image this was scanned from was
printed, it was printed backwards, and so these directions from the original
painting are backwards from the scanned image).  If you look at one side the
perspective is just right.  It is the first painting the artist has ever
placed a commode.  It is open, functional.  The bar is open, even if only to
get an orange juice.  The T.V., the magazine, the liquor, and our friend the
snake (reflected in the glass) remind us of the worldly.

At the right , shoes are taken off in holy places, which is where we lay our
temple, our body, down to read the scriptures and seek the Lord's rest.  Above
the shoes the window reflects images from all of the other paintings.  One of
the fun artistic motifs is that the reflections are small splattered dots,
which is more like energy than matter.  Light is symbolized through out the
painting.  Notice this is first light, and the sun is just coming up.  Light
is a symbol of truth, and all we ever see is reflected light.  Even the
falling star is light.  Although this was the last painting finished, it
represents the first chapter because the painting could not be tied together
until the others were done.  A lot of the design elements are like a complex
musical statement, in that the artist repeats the same design elements which
ties the paintings together, even though the scale is changing.