The Wheel of Fortune — Sharon Eisley Art

close up of "Cycles" to be revealed at SROpenStudios

Fate seems capricious of late. She spins her wheel and people I love are cast off, or so overwhelmed by the turns that they take themselves off, tap out of the crazy ride. I'm getting dizzy. Around and around. around and around. Good luck, bad luck, downturn, hit bottom, hang on, meditate, surrender, upturn, hope, fake it till you make it, view from the top, knowledge accrued, the four seasons, the tetramorph, the four corners of the earth, make sense, rest, peace, epiphany...and then Fortuna laughs hysterically. And the wheel turns. I must apologize here for this image goes back so far in our human history, and there is so much to write! And my personal ride on this wheel is also wordy. If you just want to know what it means, well, look at the image and decide for yourself. Don't worry about the deep changing metaphor vortex that is this tarot card! Otherwise, read on my friend.

The wheel of Fortune is a wonderfully ancient image. How could it not be? We have been human as long as we've been human. We live the cycles of life, each of us. We see the turning of the seasons and know our life also has its seasons. History reveals an even older wheel- The wheel of becoming, the Bahvacakra, from ancient India. This wheel is a step by step guide to enlightenment, with fabulous symbolism. I won't break it down here. Go stare at it awhile! It's totally 3D.

The concept of Fortune's wheel was first invented in Babylon and later taken up by the ancient Greeks. Cicero wrote in his In Pisonem: “The house of your colleague rang with song and cymbals while he himself danced naked at a feast, wherein, even while he executed his whirling gyrations, he felt no fear of the Wheel of Fortune” ("cum conlegae tui domus cantu et cymbalis personaret cumque ipse nudus in convivio saltaret, in quo cum illum saltatorium versaret orbem, ne tum qui dem fortunae rotam pertimescebat"). The wheel then rolls into Roman culture. The Roman philosopher Boethius (c. 480–524) wrote of Fortune and her Wheel in his Consolatio Philosophiae. " Having entrusted yourself to Fortune's dominion, you must conform to your mistress's ways. What, are you trying to halt the motion of her whirling wheel? Dimmest of fools that you are, you must realize that if the wheel stops turning, it ceases to be the course of chance." Which makes me think of a bingo ball machine, churning out numbers at random to make your fortune....or not.

But my journey lately has been all about the cycles of life and so I chose to riff off the wheels portrayed by many artists in 1500s medieval art. The image of the wheel of fortune became one of the earliest tarot cards in 1440. And the medieval illustrators painted a flurry of tarot wheels. I studied this type of art in my late twenties, particularly miniatures, and taught a class for Renaissance Fair Actors (back when they were interested in actual history recreation and not, say, wearing star trek uniforms or chain mail over bare sunburned skin). The mid 1500s was a period where everything one painted had a meaning and could be read like a book. Fortuna was a known archetype then, part of the zeitgeist of the time. Writers deliberated about her, poets sang of her, and even common folk prayed for her favor. She pulled kings, paupers, and popes off her wheel. She was often blindfolded, impartial. She was sometimes half white and half black, like a metaphorical Cruella de Vil. I really would have loved to paint her as a black and white figure but today I worried it would be read to be about racial issues (which it really is as well). Different times use different symbols for a reason. Mostly Fortune turned her wheel and humans found themselves in power, or descending from power. The figures would say "I reign. I have reigned. I am without a kingdom. I shall reign." Which honestly is pretty positive thinking when you consider it. She was Rota Fortunae, the fragility of power. Shakespeare wrote "Giddy fortune's furious fickle wheel." Wouldn't that be a great band title! This inspired me to paint, first a chuckling, then hysterically laughing Fortuna. Laughing so hard, Fortune is by all measures blind without a blindfold, her eyes squeezed shut as her mouth is opened so wide. I wanted to paint the spinning galaxy in there but I didn't think it'd read right on the card. The Ptolemaic concept of the universe was as the zodiac being a wheel with its "signs" constantly turning throughout the year and having effect on the world’s and individual's fate (or fortune). The medieval wheel I chose didn't have the 4 spokes for the four seasons, nor eight for transformation. I painted twelve spokes for the twelve months of the year, the zodiac. I have time and fate depicted.

My 'I have reigned' figure harkens to a wheel illustration, though less cartoony, inspired by the 1500s Netherlandish, Flemish artists van Eyke and van der Weyden, which I adore, with its high realism, its love of the details like folding fabric. She is hanging on as she loses her crown. The crown has long represented intellect and connection to the devine above. Its falls away again. My upward bound "I will reign" person is also Flemish art inspired- an artist faking it until they make it. He wears the animal mask of the sphinx, pretending to be intelligent, to be successful, until the wheel turns them to its peak. At that point their human face is revealed, balanced with their animal nature, their tetramorph body, that unites the lion, the bull (tail) and eagle wings, with their human face. For that moment all will be aligned and understood. And then the wheel turns again.

And my wheel and Fortune herself come from 1500s wheel illustrations. I have always loved the work of Heronimous Bosch (shocker, right?). Recently I stood in front of his triptych of Temptation of St. Anthony, admiring not just the whimsical strange creativity but that he was quite a good artist. I hope to capture this in my Wheel. Although death has loomed large of late in my life, I couldn't bring myself to paint the skeleton that sometimes pulled people off the wheel in the 1500s. Instead I imagined the surrender we must instigate to survive the downturns of life. There was a man on one wheel from 1550 that looked a bit like the hanged man, and I knew my figure would be the original old version of the hanged man. To balance the Sphinx already creeping onto the top of the wheel, I gave him an Anubis head. Just as the sphinx has her wisdom of life at the top, so Anubis, egyptian guard of the underworld, has his profound knowledge of death. He smiles in surrender and peace with patience. What the fuck else can you do down there?

The sphinx, oh the sphinx, with her wisdom of the cycles of life! What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three in the evening? So goes her riddle. You know the answer, kind reader, I'm certain, it is a human: a baby crawling on all fours, a person walking, and an old person with a cane. What goes on hormone replacement therapy in the afternoon? What loses their parents, inevitably? What has their children move away into their own cycles? What has enlightenment in the eleventh hour? Have you figured out how to balance your animal and human natures, your body and spirit, your instinct and your intuition? The sphinx, sometimes male, sometimes female sits atop its pillar and thinks it has achieved all these things, But it too is at the whim of the wheel of fortune as it turns, so instead of the traditional pilar I put her right on the wheel, my king, my queen, my wise one. It realizes it has not learned all the lessons and must fall and hang at the bottom again. My brother, a brilliant quantum physicist, was mortified when I found stories of his from his youth that weren't amazing. His poetry wasn't deep yet. He had only circled the wheel a few times then, but now sits on top. The sphinx is the king of his pride of lions. Full of pride. He too will be turned and turned again. Kings and leaders, heads of the department of quantum physics, accomplished artists, fools and mystics, we all still have lessons to learn and cycles that pull us around the wheel. In truth the journey is ideally a spiral. Each time we rise and fall and rise we, hopefully, are better humans, further on our path through this life, still holding on. Like the sphinx we must not be passive observers but instead use our wisdom and discernment to navigate and adapt to the ever changing cycles of moving through this one life. You can't just leave it all to Fortune. That's not the point. You have will and choice as the wheel spins. Even the choice to get off.

Last week, as I drove my eldest son across the United States to graduate school in New York, I found out that a good friend of mine had tapped out, gotten herself off the wheel. I'm still pretty raw writing this. Were the rotations too much for her? We met in birth class, pregnant with our older sons. Our doula introduced us and prophetically pronounced we'd be lifelong friends. I guess that was her lifetime in the end. My friend visited me the night she died, in my dreams, letting me know she was finally happy, she was ok. The next day I meant to call her from the road. I didn't know she was already gone. So now I've lost the friend of my childhood, the friend of my parenting years, and my own mother. Three amazing women from three major cycles in my life. It's a lot. This crazy ride on the wheel. I feel I must grow from this grief, this loss, from the turns, but it seems like war-mongering, horrible profit, to rise again with inspiration from their deaths. Fortuna, be kind to me please. I'm hanging on pretty good, not to worry, but I could use some slowed down time for a bit. Time to paint the ridiculous folds of cloth on these figures, to think about the afterlife and where our souls get off to, to drink in some sunlight on top of the wheel.

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Fortuna be kind to me,

Make the turns slow so

I can hold on. Don’t laugh so hysterically.

You spin your ancient wheel

and people I love are cast off,

or so overwhelmed by the turns

that they tap out of this crazy ride.

I'm getting dizzy. Colors blur to A. Black.

Around and around. around and around.

What’s good luck, what’s bad luck?

downturn, hit bottom, hang on,