Oh lord... what have I done?
thanks for the welcome everyone.
Not the stasis I expected.
I am disappointed you are not a clown and wolf on a see saw.
Indeed. I hate the card, but
Stasis is pretty.
Obviously, David Bowie from the Ashes to Ashes music video is painting on a teeter-totter at night with a blindfolded coyote who is playing with a ball of yarn.
Now, as we know from Native American traditional tales, coyote is the trickster. A yarn is another term from a fabricated story, and the moon is in the background to reference Bowie's song Space Oddity. The Trickster is blindfolded as a reference to Justice (which is blind). So, the trickster justice system is spinning a yarn to keep Major Tom occupied (or in Stasis) so that the government could cover up his disappearance. Little do they know that they wouldn't have needed to, since he was more interested in his artistic endeavors, represented by the painter's palette.
So he have, on one side, the lost artisan, and on the other, the conniving bureaucracy, and the only way for the two opposing concepts to stay balanced is by an utter lack of progress, signified by the inability to untap.
The art was obviously made by someone with little grasp on what MTG was. Fair enough I suppose, since WOTC didn't really have its act together back in the Alpha times. The art description probably just read, "a picture representing a state of stasis" or something.
Also, your art critiques all fail to address the light blue patch in the sky. Obviously this is the light of day, which represents the knowledge and civilization the man figure brings.
It is counterbalanced (literally) by the bestial trickster god of archaic myth who wishes to keep man bound in ignorance (the blindfold). To do this he uses means both binding and restrictive and warm and comforting, here the yarn, which represents the comfort of familiar falsehoods (as was pointed out earlier, stories are sometimes called yarns).
The two figures' positions on the see-saw represent the relative status of the two figures in modern life; in the eyes of the artist, mankind is only halfway to enlightenment. The two forms of story-figure, still fighting for the soul of mankind.
The piece's sense of whimsy clearly is meant as commentary on how modern scholars and the populace at large have trouble addressing the issue seriously.
Geez guys, it was kind of obvious.
Also, welcome and good luck Gobo.