I start the story right from its end, from giving its title to it. There is a book about the history of the Sándor Weöres Theatre of the city of Szombathely and about its founder, Tamás Jordán. The book starts with the words of the poet Sándor Weöres saying, “The ladder is in you, inside”! I wish everyone understood that really, the ladder is there in you inside and it depends on how far you climb on it.

 

Upon receipt of the invitation to make a picture to Tamás Jordán for his 80th birthday I tried to imagine what kind of art piece I would rejoice over? My idea was that I would like to look at people who are important for me and also if I would be glad to be reminded to the joyful moments of my life. I did not know too much about Tamás when I started the work. I had seen him only once on stage but this was an important encounter as this was recitation of the piece “Two Popes” after which I made my own picture with the similar title. My husband came to my help this time as well thus he bought me Tamás Jordán’s autobiographical book titled “Backslicing” (“Hátrametszés” in original). This is the book gaving the background for this picture. Reading this book, I learnt that games, gaming are among the basic elements of his life. He likes playing bridge, horse racing, chess and also other games invented by him. I started right with a zebra crossing, Tamás would understand why. For all others I propose to read his book (page No. 43). There is some resemblance to the Baeatles’ Abbey Road cover but here there are the Jordán kids and their mothers crossing the street. I had already used chess figures for one of my pictures, it seemed to me that they would be useful in this very case too. The road leads to the building of the theatre in Szombathely just because this is the major work in his life achieved through many episodes of his life. To be authentic I sacrificed a pack of cards used for bridge to draw the middle line. Theatre goers march on the left side of the road while one can see Tamás’ colleagues from the theatre on the right side lead by Tamás himself together with his partner standing on his side in life as well. It is not a widely known fact that he graduated from the Technical University as a surveying engineer. I remembered a stamp featuring teodolit, their major tool. I searched for this stamp so one can see it on the picture now. I started by saying that this picture had been commissioned to me. I got completely free hand from the commissioner by asking only one thing, the levelling lath must be there. This I pictured it of course by using stamps.