Statues fascinate me. I’m often drawn to them in churches, in museums, finding myself studying their inscrutable (or weathered) expressions, their posture, how much has been captured in stone. I didn’t even notice this one’s lack of certain attributes. I was too engrossed by his posture, his face, the way he loomed over his surroundings. The whiteness, the hardness, the details carved or chipped away to reveal a beauty very different, yet similar to other kinds. No wonder Anne Rice’s vampires became more statue-like as they got older; paler, harder, more removed from humanity with age and blood. No wonder they were played such a thematic part in the background of the TV series Witchblade, often lending themselves to the setting and emotional state Sara Pezzini was in. No wonder a member of BTS kissed a statue at the end of the stunning video Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Statues are like us, created by human hands, yet remote from us. They can stand for centuries, a silent testament of times past.
I’ve created my own creepy version of statues in Tales of the Navel: The Shadow Forest where statues are worshipped as silent icons of beauty in the Garden of Arachne, yet were once living objects of passion for the hungry arachnocratic ladies who control the garden. These statues no longer move and speak, but they’re always watching. Always.
How about you, dear reader? Have you ever been struck by a statue? (Hopefully it was just metaphorically.) Did it give you creative impulses? What did you do with those impulses?