“The Walnut Table”

An adventure into the worlds shaped by Tolkien

Tolkien (2019)

From learning about Ancient History, Astrophysics, Oceans, and Death, my next adventure was to immerse myself into the creation of fantasy worlds.
As a New Zealand Citizen, and having spent most of my life here, I have been surrounded by scenes used in the filming of the films based on Tolkien’s books: Lord of the Rings, and Hobbit. .
Such films have been a part of the identity of this country that I live in, and I thought it might be time now to get myself into this fantasy part of our world I live in. To begin my dive into the Lord of the Rings, I figured it be best if I start from getting to understand the master behind it all, J. R. R. Tolkien.
I happened upon the film Tolkien (2019), directed by Dome Karukoski. Immediately, I fell in love with the way it had been filmed and the way it captured the life of Tolkien.

At this point you can guess, I was moved so much by the entire experience of watching this film, I reached out to Dome Karukoski (film director of this film), and invited Dome into my 3 Words Project for his 3 words.

“Poetry, Memory, and Isolation”

Darcelle Tolkien Dome Karukoski — The Street Art about the 3 Words

I have painted 10 Bollards on George Street, Palmerston North, as part of my Summer Street Art Project.
For each of the 10 bollards; I have chosen a person to give me 3 Words of their choice. Whilst also capturing a fleeting memory of the week prior to painting the bollard, each bollard also connects the 3 words I have been given.
Dome Karukoski was the nominated person for the bollard called “My Neighbors Trees”. This painted bollard connects Dome’s 3 words ‘Poetry, Memory, and Isolation” whilst also capturing a glimpse into my life during that week I painted it.
Click on the button below to read more about this specific bollard:

Read about this Bollard

And then what?

Upon the completion of the bollard, I have sent the pictures to Dome (as street art cannot be sent away). Discussions were had about how Dome would love to visit New Zealand, and to also visit the film sets of Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, but how the circumstances would prove this to be a difficult mission.

I then had a new idea!

1) I would create a small painting (a bonus piece of art), still based on Dome’s 3 Words “Poetry, Memory, and Isolation”.

2) Once the painting has been completed, I would take the painting itself on a tour of the Hobbiton™ Movie Set Tours, since Dome is unable to have this tour here.

3) Then I would send the painting away to Dome in Finland when finished with the tour.

This painting was completed in April 2022. Took me 4 months of study to create this piece.

Below is a breakdown of what this painting is about:

Poetry:

Poetry needs words. I decided to find a way to use words in the creation of this painting. Someone that is known to be great with words is Tolkien himself.

I used the two articles below to assist in my study on Tolkien’s contribution to the Oxford English Dictionary:

1) Fletcher, Rachel A. (2020) "Tolkien's Work on the Oxford English Dictionary: Some New Evidence From Quotation Slips," Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 10 : Iss. 2 , Article 9.. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol10/iss2/9

2) Gilliver, Peter M. (1996) "At the Wordface: J.R.R. Tolkien's Work on the Oxford English Dictionary, "Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 21 : No. 2 , Article 27. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss2/27

Tolkien had been asked to help define several words beginning with the letter W. I took it upon my creative mission to incorporate as many of these W words into my painting for Dome.

Below is a brief description of how some of the W Words have been used to create this painting:

Walnut: A table made of Walnut Wood
Walrus: The animal depicted in this is a Walrus
Wander/Wild: a smaller Walrus is shown at the back right side (looking out the large window), the walrus thinking about wandering out in the in the wilderness that lies beyond the horizon.
Want: The walrus also sees a dragon in the sky. This dragon is what the walrus wants to become (the teeth help us see that this is a Walrus Dragon).
Warm: the color of the dragon is taken from the colors of the clouds during Sunrise.
Wait: All three depictions of the walrus in this painting are seen doing nothing but waiting for something. But they all wait for something different.
Waistcoat: the small walrus in the back is wearing a red waistcoat. A special reference to Boy in a Red Vest by Paul Cézanne.

Memory:

All memories come as fragments of what we remember. Much like dreams, we can often feel they disintegrate into oblivion. The walrus depicted at the front sitting across the table is a memory of the walrus thinking about itself.

Fragmented and dreamlike.

The real subject of this whole painting is the walrus standing and looking out the window

Isolation:

This painting is about the time I had taken to go “off-the-grid” in March 2022, to finish my 10-month course on Introductory Astrophysics. The room depicted in the painting is a representation of the room (and the marvelous view!) I was in for study retreat, away from society to fully immerse myself into the study of the universe and the physics behind it.

It was entirely about isolating myself from current events, social media, and connection with people.

To see my paintings about the astrophysics I have learned click on the button below:

Learn more about my Outer Space Paintings