Luke sent another poem this morning and attached to his email is a
thumbnail photograph of Leonard’s latest portrait of him. Luke vehemently
insists that Leonard does not show their work to anyone and he has only allowed
me to take one photograph of him from the workroom, so I realise that the act
of sending the photograph must have put a tremendous strain on him. The poem that
accompanies the photo is a love poem rather than one of his darker writings...perhaps
he is mellowing after all....
‘Promise
me,
If
you love me,
That
when we can tolerate no more
We
will consume one another
So
that the candle will never reach the mark
And
the white stallion will never find our door.’
Luke and Leonard have resolved their dispute and they are bonding closer than ever before. In fact Luke has been taking a much more active part in the creative process and he has been suggesting props, camera angles and costume choices during our sessions. We took time out from painting yesterday to have another photography session and Luke assisted Leonard with setting up the camera equipment and fixing the lighting. They prepared me for the shoot in a reverential silence like two morticians working with a cadaver, scraping back my hair and tying it in a bun at the back of my skull so tightly that I had a severe headache throughout the remainder of the day. My face was cleansed of all makeup expect for a heavy black mascara and the photograph was shot through a red coloured filter. Leonard gave no spoken direction and I moved instinctively as he manipulated me into the correct position. At one point Luke started fussing with my hair and fiddling with my clothing like he was dressing a doll; it was nice to have someone pay such close attention to me but I felt terribly dehumanised!
They were both captivated by
the final photograph from the very second that they saw it on the camera display
screen but they spoke impersonally and analytically about my appearance as
though I was not in the room with them, which was very odd indeed. Leonard
calls the photograph ‘The Red Portrait’ and he has asked Luke to print out multiple
copies. I did not ask to see it, not because I disliked the staging or the composition
of the photo, but because I am struggling with the image of myself that is being
reflected in Leonard's work recently. The photographs seem darker, almost
inhuman, and the severities of the physical changes that I see in them are upsetting,
no matter how carefully Leonard tries to conceal them.
