Interlude of the Doppelganger

Interlude of the Doppelganger

Featured in 1 in the Begining Ancient Practices and Painters in Modern Times groups

Acrylic on 14×18 canvas

Doppelganger – n – (German) a ghostly counterpart of a person; a ghostly double of a living person. In mythology – a doppelganger is a harbinger of death for it’s real life counterpart if seen.

This is a theme that has been showing up for me so many times recently that I had to put it into a painting! (Gotta love synchronicity!) Let’s see, I was reading the Rachel Morgan series by Kim Harrison. In one of the books, a ‘doppelganger spell’ is used which transforms one person into an identical version of the spell caster. (Some say a spell can create a doppelganger, or identical twin, out of thin air.) I picked up another series by Marie Brennan called The Doppelganger Series. (Warrior & Witch) In this series, when an infant witch is born, a ritual is performed to create the channel for magic. In doing so, a doppelganger is created. This doppelganger does not have the channel for magic and is traditionally killed until one who survived finds a way to rejoin the two halves of the person. (Both series are GREAT, I highly recommend them!)

Then, I went with a friend last month to go see LUDO in concert! (Incredible band – amazing show!) The band, The Graduate, opened for them. I had never heard this band before, but was instantly hooked when they started playing! They are a rock band with an added ambient sound. I couldn’t help but dance! They played this one song that started out being about 6 minutes of instrumental sounds, then the lyrics came. I was totally rocking out! LOL I turned to my friend and told her: “I HAVE to get this CD! I could totally paint to this sound!” So, when I got home, I downloaded their CD, Anhedonia. (GREAT CD!) The song they played live that I loved so much is actually two songs on the album. The instrumental piece is Interlude and the part with lyrics is, of course, Doppelganger! (You can hear them in order on my profile!)

“My dreams haunt me in my sleep
They stay hidden inside of me
Very deep so I’ll be sure to stay
I’ve got direction in my craze
To keep trying for another day
Who needs perception anyway

Three long weeks I stayed in the room
Waiting for the man to show me something new
Staring through the glass
It was crystal clear
But the stranger just cried, ahh
So late one night with my head in a blaze
I said to the man in the sorry state
Love is for the lucky
You know what they want
Or maybe love’s best left to who cares less”

Seems to me that in The Graduate’s song, he’s fighting with his reflection, or doppelganger, about several of life’s lessons. So, I started forming these ideas in my head of what my doppelganger piece would look like. The sound of the music really inspired the colors and movement of my piece, but it was the books I read that launched my overall theme. A faerie comes out at night to create a doppelganger spell in order to be in two places at once; in the faerie realm, and in the mortal realm. She hangs two Will-o-the-Wisps on either side of her tree in order to gain some light for both herself and her newly created doppelganger. She conjures her magic in her hands and it swirls into the trees and the air around her as her spell takes form and her doppelganger is created! But which is the real faerie, and which is purely magic?!

You decide….

Doppelganger Lyrics
Doppelganger Video

Interlude of the Doppelganger belongs to the following groups:

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