My Cosmic Carpet.

This began as a post-it sketch I made outdoors in Thomas Paine Park on April 1, 2004.  It was unusually balmy for that time of year and I was in a peaceful state of mind.

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am an aficionado of the Sumerian goddess Inanna.  I have collected every book I could find involving her, most prominently Inanna - Queen of Heaven and Earth by  Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer.

In one chapter of Wolkstein and Kramer's book, Inanna is described as traveling through the sky in the "Boat of Heaven."  Some people (whose names I can't remember off the top of my head) have inferred that the Boat of Heaven signifies Inanna's vulva.  Others (whose names I can't recall immediately) say that this Boat of Heaven is no different than Helios' Sun Chariot or Anubis' boat which travels through the Underworld.  Others say the Boat of Heaven is the conveyance of the planet Venus, who in Sumerian mythology was embodied by Inanna.  There is also a similarity between this celestial Boat of Heaven and JRR Tolkien's later story of Vingliot, the ship of the elven mariner Eärendil, who also personified the planet Venus.

But I digress.

As I sat in the park, I was ruminating on Inanna and her multifaceted Boat of Heaven.  So with pen, colored ink, and a post-it page, I drew Inanna relaxing in her Boat of Heaven, which I crudely translated into French as Le Barque du Ciel.  This was before Google Translate.  I later found out the proper French translation is Le Bateau du Paradis.  Le Barque du Ciel translates back into English as simply "Sky Boat."

So I was a little off target.

Returning to the sketch, I colored the boat in a reddish brown.  Resting aboard it is Inanna in a radiant red gown with what is meant to be an exposed red and gold garter belt.  One arm is underneath Inanna's head, serving as a cushion.  The other arm is extended over the edge of the boat, which allows Inanna to trace her hand gently on the water.  The water ripples as the boat passes atop it.  Inanna's face and limbs are the same color as the post-it.  I originally intended to paint her skin a light tan, but I couldn't find the proper marker.   On the left hand side of the boat is a billowing purple sail spangled with five-pointed stars.  At the boats stern is an incompletely rendered figure of who was meant to be Inanna's companion Ninshubur.  Ninshubur works the tiller as they gently sail along.  The title Le Barque du Ciel is written in a calligraphy style which matches the undulating ripples around the boat.  At the far right is my signature and the date.

If it seems incomplete it is because it is in fact incomplete.  I, the artist, was such a perfectionist that I was afraid to finish the sketch.  I feared it would "come out wrong," and I didn't believe in what the TV personality Bob Ross called "happy accidents."  I didn't believe in serendipity, and the sketch suffers for it.

I fixed Le Barque du Ciel onto the inner cover of a notepad and stuck it away in my bag.  Seventeen years went by.  For seventeen years that note pad would languish on one shelf after the other as I and my wife Susan moved from one new home to another.  The notepad and Le Barque du Ciel was forgotten.

Earlier this year around May, I riffled through my collection of books and old sketch pads.  I removed an old notepad from a shelf.  The notepad was very well preserved and barely showed any wear.  I opened the notepad and I saw Le Barque du Ciel gazing back at me along with another post it art which showed Inanna's sister Ereshkigal on the prowl on a nameless battlefield.

I immediately set about scanning both images onto my iPad and placing them in the Photos app.  Over the past few months, I have displayed them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  The originals are safely tucked away in the same notepad and are kept well in my sight.

On September 30, 2021, Susan and I moved out of a rental into our first condominium.  It is our first permanent home in several years.  There is a sizable room that is meant to be a guest bedroom.  I commandeered it and made it into my office.   As we unpacked boxes, I felt it was time to decorate my office.  The building's management office advised us to cover 80 percent of the floor with carpeting so as to reduce "noise pollution" of our footsteps.  Apparently our footsteps may disturb the other residents in their respective apartments.

So I looked at the bare floor of my office and spontaneously decided that not only would I purchase a rug, I would purchase a customized rug with my artwork printed on it.  I went to a site that designed rugs and carpets and found an option where one could print their own designs on their medium.  One of the sizes offered was a rug 50" by 50".  A size proportionate to a post-it page!

I immediately uploaded the image of Inanna and Le Barque du Ciel.  At first there was a problem:  The image was too small to print on a rug 50"square.  So I moved from the Photo app to the Preview app.  In Preview I expanded the size of my post it to the approximate length and width of the rug.  I uploaded the image again and this time it fit!  I put down the money for the carpet plus shipping.  I was informed it would arrive in two weeks.

I followed the carpet's progress on line.  The company contacted me to inform me that they were reprinting the image as it didn't quite come out right the first time.  I grew a little nervous, thinking they would never print it properly.  I feared the colors would bleed over each other and make a mess.  I envisioned a thousand factors working against me and that my carpet would never be completed.

Just one day short of a week, I was informed that the carpet was on its way.   Every day I scanned the progress of its delivery from London (London!) to Cleveland, Ohio.  I was informed it would be held up for a day in Cleveland and it drove me out of my mind.  I knew it was probably due to pandemic precautions, but still I was a babe on Christmas Eve dying to tear open his present.

The following day, it arrived.  It was wrapped and its bulk was unwieldy.  There was no carriage in my building big enough to handle it, so I carried it as though it was some big, clumsy weapon down the hall, and up the elevator.  At my apartment door, I wrestled with propping it upright while fumbling for the house key.

I entered the apartment, the carpet cradled in both arms as I carried it across the threshold.  I entered the office, and vigorously tore away at the wrapping around the carpet.  The carpet was furled around a cardboard axle.  I was afraid the whole damn thing would collapse and crash into one of the shelves or my office desk.  Ultimately it unraveled and lay perfectly flat on the floor.

My cosmic carpet.

There was my post-it art.  Extended fifty inches square, the Sky Boat, the Boat of Heaven.  It spread out with geographic perfection:  Inanna's face looked eastward through the window and up the hill where the sun rose.  The ripples in the water paralleled the flow of the Hudson down to New York Harbor.  The dark purple, star speckled sail billowed towards the west, the dusk, the twilight.

Then it occurred to me:  The ripples in the blue water could be interpreted as clouds and the water itself the sky.  It truly was the Boat of Heaven.  The vessel and the passenger inhabited the sea, sky, and stars.

Susan later noticed something.  The shape of the deep red boat resembled a vulva.  Her garter was a deep red vulva as well.  Why did I not notice all these things before?   Did this emerge from my subconscious, or was it simple coincidence?

Over time, I noticed all the imperfections in the illustration.  The ripples were outlined with black ink.  Inanna's left arm was unusually long.  Her right arm was so firmly tucked behind her long hair that it was practically invisible.  It was almost as though it had been amputated.  Most importantly, it was incomplete.  Le Barque du Ciel was the product of a perfectionist so fearful of making a mistake that he could not even allow a happy error.

I suppose I could make an oil painting based on the post-it.  I could complete my humble work of art at last.  I could re-sketch it and move on from there.   Can I paint again?  It has been years since I've created one.  I have a full plate, though.  Writing, running errands, meditating... Then there's the distractions:  An addiction to YouTube, heading into town to sip a cappuccino at the local pizza shop, collecting vinyl records, stacking up book after book... books I never get around to reading.

I could do it.  I could do my little sketch justice.  I could finally complete the work and look forward to a happy accident.  The slumbering goddess and her friend at the tiller.  This compass between sea and sky and stars.

My cosmic carpet!

- JJB

All images by John Joyce Baker