“The Fortune” triptych explores humanity’s fraught relationship with mother nature through the lens of whaling—a brutal tradition that serves as a metaphor for mankind’s attempts to dominate the natural world. The poetry examines the legacy of exploitation, the yearning for connection, and the spiritual resonance found in nature’s mysteries. From the harpooner’s relentless pursuit of power to the whaler’s longing for home, from the haunting song of the whales to the quiet wisdom of patience, The Fortune invites viewers to confront the consequences of their actions and rediscover their place within a greater, harmonious design.
"I have to know the meaning of courage now,
That I once knew home, gives me hope,
I stand firm in the sand as waves surround,
Beyond each measured moment in this ocean,
I rally in the wash, this life’s emotion.
I hear on the wind its sound,
The sound of all the world calling for our victory,
My soul bleeds for home,
That home I know I’ve left its shore,
This new world in our time is built by marches of war,
I am your soldier, I will traverse the roughest tides and prevail the gathering storms,
If it means I make the ocean my home,
My brothers here have such courage for our country,
That we course the shores to destroy tyranny.
And wage the empire on the mast,
For all the world the rocking seas are where this wind will take us,
We know that,
The shape, the ship, the shore,
The army, the country,
Our waves are crashing on the shores of tyranny,
There can only be victory,
Before I left my father said to me;
"Go out to the world & you will learn it’s pain,
You will meet many people, & at first it’ll feel strange,
Until you realize we are all one,
we see, we hear, we feel much the same,
When this you see, at last you will be seen,
Harness that pain, for your own coming into being."
For this army is balanced on the only rock left at the beach, the soldiers are their crossing,
To the conquests,
We fight like Michael in the storm,
Our swords, they swipe where we envision,
Those angels in the rough and battling storms, they swirl in the starry skies, they see farther than my humble human eyes.
They watch all even when it is burdened by the darkness of the night.
They fly and watch them ~ to the beating drums that are our hearts, they play the music of our soul, and that poetry is bold.
My boldest charge is the will, for the pursuance of our destiny.
From the sky the fortune fell.
Fortune is the home we find ourselves.
Home is a paradise we fly decades away from, before landing on its brim once again.
We see as far as the wind will have us and then we still see further again.
For distant the shores we conquest is nothing from without, if we do not conquest within.
Fortune heard the call of everywhere we’ve been, the fortune is our world if we believe.
Hear the echoes ~ they are the voices of the sea. ”
~ Laurence Fuller, 2024
"The Fortune" series exhibits during Miami Art Week, December 2024 at Scope Art Show with Superchief Gallery, and with M2 Miami Nolcha Shows immersive exhibition.
Cinematic Poetry by Laurence Fuller
Textures of paint AI modelled on paintings by Stephanie Fuller
www.laurencefuller.art
