A.J. SPRINGER

 This series began in an artist residency in Oaxaca, Mexico, named 'La Maquina', creating 3 editions of 40 prints of a multicolored stone lithographs. My source for the imagery in the pieces came after creating a digital collage of film stills taken from the 1950 French movie "Orpheus'' by Jean Cocteau. In the film, he adjusts the myth of Orpheus in the context of Cocteau's era. While the amount of tales about Orpheus is extensive, the most common story was of him and his wife. After a lifetime of creative pursuits in music and poetry, he encountered Euradyice, and they quickly fell in love. Tragically, Eurydice was bitten by a viper the day after their wedding and perished from the poison. Orpheus decided to venture into the Underworld of death to confront Hades and ask for his wife's return. Hades and Persephone agree to release Euradyice so they can return to the land of the living, but under one strict condition: on the walk together back to the gates of hell, they can not see each other during the journey and can not look back. They follow this rule until the entrance. When Orpheus steps out into the light, he becomes overcome with doubt and turns around a moment too soon to embrace his wife, who has not yet crossed the threshold. He realizes his mistake as she is pulled back into the darkness. I create my interpretation of the work in my piece, 'Los Suenos de Orfeo,' picturing the psychological aftermath of his second loss and his inability to move on by using the parallel characters in Cocteau's cinematic version.

 

The story has many interpretations, but my own personal meaning is as a metaphor for the process of grieving. In psychology, there are 5 general stages of grief, whether from death or simply from ending a pivotal relationship in your life: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and (hopefully) acceptance. In my experience of grief, I have found that the most palpable and persistent stage is bargaining, one that Orpheus finds himself trapped in for most of his story. His entire journey and ultimate failure is a prompt metaphor for the bargaining process, a losing battle no matter the amount of effort, strife, and sentiment behind the intentions. No one can cheat death, and overcoming it means learning to not look back and torture oneself over how it could have been prevented, which becomes Orpheus's ultimate downfall. He becomes paralyzed by his pain and unable to fall in love again while living the rest of his life stuck in angst, which ultimately becomes his legacy until he perishes under his own grief, unable to accept the unacceptable.