The Wider Circle

“The Wider Circle” is a collaborative project with the work of Dante Alighieri at its heart. Join Linda and James Sale plus other collaborators, as they take you on a visual, literary, and digital journey. For the first time, “The Wider Circle” will introduce James Sale’s Divine Comedies and The English Cantos. Startling yet accessible poems about the descent into hell and back, accompanied by evocative artwork. “The Wider Circle” is for anyone who has an interest in our path through life’s travails, the triumph of the human spirit, and beauty beyond the merely literal.

See the results of this collaboration June 10th – 23rd, 2020

On the left, “Emerging Face”. On the right, “I Am Here And There” mixed media. "To me, these two images reflect two selves. The ‘conscious self’, which we project outward. And the deeper, darker, ‘shadow self’. Intriguingly, the eyes of the conscious self are black, suggesting the concealed shadow within, whereas the eyes of the shadow self are gold, suggesting that they are looking into the light. The conscious self is connected with nature, the greenery encircling them, flowers or perhaps blossoms falling. The shadow self, however, is attached to more machine-like structures: wheels, grids, suggesting that it is from the darker id in the human imagination that we derive industry. The Divine Comedy principally centers on Dante and Virgil. One is a mentor and guide, and one a wandering and lost soul who must find his way to light. However, could they perhaps also represent two sides of a divided self? Virgil, the super-ego who knows the laws of heaven. And Dante, the id, who sympathises with those suffering in hell." Joseph Sale