Heartless

16x16" Acrylic on Canvas
I apologize for crappy photo quality. I tried scanning it. Tried, and failed. hah!

Alternate photo: fav.me/d5ef9re

The following are just thoughts and ideas,
music, quotes and such that contributed to this picture.
I've been wanting to do this one for a few years now and finally got it started in April.

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Alice keeps digging for Wonderland, hitting rocks harder than truth.

People run from the tornado but Dorothy chases Oz.

And Wendy waits for Peter-Pan, but he hasn't returned.

if you can pay the price, with Pixie enough dust, who needs happy thoughts?
Remember, you were there too,
once upon a time.

"Give me hope in silence;
Its easier,
Its kinder
So why did you choose to lean on
A man you
knew was falling? "
~Mumford and Sons
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5vAse…

'"Don't fasten on Dorothy."
[said the scarecrow to the boy.]
"Only unanswerable longing lies down that road.
Gone is gone."'
~Gregory Maguire

"Too long I've been afraid of
Losing love I guess I've lost
Well if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost..."
~Wicked the Musical

"My arms will grow,
The chest expanding,
Of all the boys you could have landed,
Why'd it have to be me?
You... Can't take my eyes off of you.
You... Can't take my eyes off of you."
~Cary Brothers
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlpsqn…



A few different ideas with this one. Firstly, I do not own the Wizard of Oz, the Tin man/Woodsman, Dorothy Gale etc.
L. Frank Baum does. Or did.

However, my ideas are not original, just swished around in my toasted brain, stolen from Maguire and Baum and other areas.

Its not really about the movie or how the characters are portrayed; I mean them more metaphorically.

Its cool how the characters from these stories have become kind of archetypes for our times.

That tear is going to make the tin man rust
-sadness can be crippling.
Heartbreak...well,
that can be worse.

Was it out of cruel neglect that the tin-smith Ku-Klip left out Nick Chopper's heart?
Or was it mercy?

'Tis a cruel inventor
gives his machine a heart.


One of the interpretations I sloshed around in my mind is that this painting shows the deceitful realtionship of one who awakens love in another, but is not prepared to love them in return;
this is Dorothy leading the Tinman on,
flirting without knowing how much damage she must be doing.

He know he cannot have her, but still he loves her and still she dangles that in front of him. And as a possible outcome, so his heart stills also. (or it is the heart of the girl that is broken/missing and the stereotypical tinman feels the poison as a result, requiring oil to move again.
How many of us turn to poison when it seems our heart has gone missing?

"Picture; you're the Queen of everything
Far as the eye can see
Under your command.
I will be
Your Guardian
When all is crumbling
Steady your hand"
The Fray www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga4Eoq…

This can go two ways. The first, the tinam lives with his unrequited love, and remains her protector, serving her as his queen. The loyal, silent love.

The second, is that the pain and constant shattering of empty hope leads to bitterness.

"My bitter heart is pumping oil into my veins
I'm nothing but a tin man, don't feel any pain
I don't feel any pain, I don't feel any pain,
I'm rusted from the rain.

Go on... crush me like a flower, rusted from the rain
Come on... strip me of my powers, beat me with your chains
And if... I'm the King of cowards,
you're the Queen of pain
I'm rusted from the rain,
I'm rusted from the rain"

and the lyrics go on...

"You hung me like a picture,
Now I'm just a frame
I used to be your lap dog,
Now I'm just a stray
Shackled in a graveyard, left here to decay
Left here to decay, left here to decay,
I'm rusted from the rain"
~Billy Talent www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cwRT4…

So that the man who once loved has no feeling, no emotion except for the destructive ones.
He cannot love anymore, so when he is kissed by someone, by someone who sees good in him...
its just reflections of the sharp edges of a broken heart.
A reminder of what he cannot have.

But he mourns that he cannot love.
The capability to mourn--is that not an indication?
Then the truly pathetic part, is that he does not know
that he can love.
That he talks himself out of it?

Is there a hope for this hollow man?
On the path to discovering what you want, you may find you've had it all along... But i don't know if that is true... but it seems to be according to the tail;
-The scarecrow had to use intelligence to figure out a way to get his brain.
-The Tinman loved and so found his heart
-The Cowardly Lion had to be brave, and so he discovered courage is the will to act despite the fear.

and Dorothy had the power to go home the whole time.

We mustn't let ourselves be destroyed, but no wizard will come to save us. Even God awaits for us to makes a choice.

“If you're losing your soul
and you know it,
then you've still got a soul left to lose”

― Charles Bukowski


"And this ain't no place for the weary kind
This ain't no place to lose your mind
This ain't no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try"
Ryan Bingham, 'The Weary Kind'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRzHVV…


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Thanks for viewing, and if you did read the above, thankyou for that as well.
Please comment if you have any ideas about it you'd like to share.
Most of the inspiration for this is in the past so I was just tying up some loose ends in my mind which feels kind of mechanical now.
But for a painting with the Tinman,
mechanical seems appropriate.

one more little song www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBTdJH…