The Art of Samantha Cimino

Quick self-portrait in ink, November 2012.

   It was this shame which dressed her suddenly, permeated her gestures, clouded her beauty, her eyes with a sudden opaqueness. She experienced it as a loss of beauty, an absence of quality.
   Every improvisation, every invention to Alan was always followed not by any direct knowledge of this shame, but by a substitution: almost as soon as she had talked, she felt as if her dress had faded, her eyes dimmed, she felt unlovely, unlovable, not beautiful enough, not of a quality deserving to be loved.

Page 15 illustration for A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin.

I would like to dedicate this post to Sara Jones, who passed this month. She introduced me to Anais Nin and I am eternally thankful for it. RIP.

Very excited about starting this painting!  It’s really tall though so it’s going to be a bit difficult to comfortably work on.

   A spread out cape was the bed of nomads, a cape unfurled was the flag of adventure.
   Now she was dressed in a costume most appropriate to flights, battle, tournaments.
   The curtain of the night’s defenselessness was rising to expose a personage prepared.
   Prepared, said the mirror, prepared said the shoes, prepared said the cape.
   She stood contemplating herself arrayed for no peaceful or trusting encounter with life.

Page 8, illustrations for A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin.

   She considered her clothes with the same weighing of possible external dangers as she had the new day which had entered through her closed windows and doors.
   Believing in the danger which sprang from objects as well as people, which dress, which shoes, which coat demanded less of her panicked heart and body?  For a costume was a challenge too, a discipline, a trap which once adopted could influence the actor.
   She ended by choosing a dress with a hole in its sleeve.  The last time she had worn it, she had stood before a restaurant which was too luxurious, too ostentatious, which she was frightened to enter, but instead of saying: “I am afraid to enter here,” she had been able to say: “I can’t enter here with a hole in my sleeve.”

Page 7, illustrations for A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin.

   She did not awaken gradually, in abandon and trust to the new day.  As soon as light or sound registered on her consciousness, danger was in the air and she sat up to meet its thrusts.
   Her first expression was one of tension, which was not beauty.  Just as anxiety dispersed the strength of the body, it also gave to the face a wavering, tremulous vagueness, which was not beauty, like that of a drawing out of focus.

Page 6 illustration for A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin.

   The dawn appearing at the door silenced her.  She tightened her cape around her shoulders as if it were the final threat, the greatest enemy of all.  To the dawn she would not even address a feverish speech.  She stared at it angrily, and left the bar.
   The lie detector followed her.

Illustration for page 5 of A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin.

   The lie detector called up the operator, gave orders to have the call traced.  It came from a bar.  Half an hour later, he was sitting there.
   He did not allow his eyes to roam or examine.  He wanted his ears alone to be attentive, that he might recognize her voice.
   When she ordered a drink, he lifted his eyes from his newspaper.
   Dressed in red and silver, she evoked the sounds and imagery of fire engines as they tore through the streets of New York, alarming the heart with the violent gong of catastrophe; all dressed up in red and silver, the tearing of red and silver cutting a pathway through the flesh.  The first time he looked at her he felt:  everything will burn!

Page 2, A Spy in the House of Love by Anais Nin

From my sketchbook…
I have turned this into a tiny piece for sale, currently up at Bare Bones Cafe. 

Newest painting, “The Alimentary Swamp”
Born out of a drawing in my sketchbook, hope you enjoy it!