A forest is a metaphor
Life moves through it, is it
The many lines of sight and the way
Light fractures its path
Between, over and under
All the components
Seeing clearly, not seeing clearly
A distracted gaze, the piercing insight
Wild abandon and amazing control
The Patterns rooted so deeply
Between us, keeping us whole.
The empty spaces
between Autumn and Winter
between past and present
The spaces between trees
Evergreen branches swaying
A folded garden umbrella
on the deserted patio
Out the back door
of my mother’s house
A house that was ours
Once.
She always wanted a pergola
We kids wanted an ice skating pond
A place to ski in winter
A dog to run around with
A baby brother
A younger sister
A bigger bedroom
than my brother
Which I got.
The empty spaces are filled now,
before I empty them again.
#1
Bother what
As memory, like an ant, crosses borders
Traversing
The split tree cocktail table
That separates me from them
Bother what
Hybrids live here, nestled between
Kadafi and Gibran
Levant roots and shoots spread
As wide as this original tree
Now, not tethered to its earth
But allowing me support if not
Succor
#2
I might sit in the desert this evening.
I might cure an unknown disease
I might found a nation that stirs peace.
I might develop a skill that no one can detect.
I could arm the defenseless or shadow the mighty.
These vertical pathways exist, unencumbered
By disdain or wealth or priceless princes
That galavant and come undone
In this Spring moonshine
I might just sit in the desert this evening
Come what may.
My artistic journey is deeply rooted in exploring the relationship between humans, the natural world and the profound connection between them.
“We are immersed in a field of undifferentiated matter from which our senses gather bits of information…” * serves as a philosophical foundation for me as an observational artist. Focusing on trees and botanicals, my perception of the world is a selective process, where I filter and interpret the sensory information around me. Often I unearth patterns in nature. Some are obvious and others are hidden. I like the idea of working on a series where I juxtapose the visible and the concealed.
I invite viewers to see the world in a new light and appreciate the intricacies and patterns that often go unnoticed. This perspective, conveying the interplay between humans and the environment, evokes a sense of mindfulness and connection in viewers and can be a source of inspiration. Including raising awareness about the importance of preserving natural landscapes.
*The Creative Act: a Way of Being”- Rick Rubin
Who do you love? Life is who
which includes me and you.
What do you love? Being captured
being encircled
being crowned
by the wind, by the sun.
Where do you love? Anywhere
in the pale
and beyond the pale
How do you love? Emphasis on emphatic
emphasis on calm
freely
I love the way leaves get excited by the sun.
They arch their spines and point upwards, becoming inverse to what they were.
A cup for gathering sunshine.
My cup runneth over.
What if we’re unique but also interchangable?
What if we all start off with the same amount of everything, like intelligence?
The light of the world is here.
The shape of it moves as the tree branches sway.
Its a soft lemon-yellow against the trees’ grey-green.
There is a dead branch resting where it fell, held up by other limbs.
A song, that is a prayer in a language I don’t understand, caresses the present moment.
I feel the sentiment of deep appreciation.
Small part of this vast world.
Sitting on a high ridge watching the sun set. When I close my eyes I see fields and then white cliffs under fragile blue sky. In the distance, mountains.
Am I walking in a strange land? Maybe just new to me. I have a request. I wouldn’t mind a guide. I will not ignore them.
When I look further I see, filtered through the light of a sunny day. All is calm. I am at peace. I feel my heart beating. It is working well.
All the lands that lie before you are yours. No need to run, no need to take, simply look-see.
A rising sun, a rising tide, a rising breath. They all roll together. They are your green rolling hills.
You seek a place to be. You are that place to be. Open the door, enter. Leave, enter again.
You are a passage way always passing. Your steps follow a plan and then no plan.
Your head is in the clouds and then back down on earth.
Nothing is tarnished by your dream. Life loves you. Brings you success. You are all one of a kind.
Sleep well, dream deep.
He is a man dreaming too.
The dancing trees once crouched beside one another.
Their laughter flies in the face
of our reality.
Their aching toes spread wide in preparation for the movement.
They plan.
They don’t plan.
They hope.
They don’t hope.
They Be.
In the endless dance, timeless and contemporary.
Futile and filled with meaning.
I come back to they physicalness.
One dark umber.
One a muddy sienna.
With tones of agreement between them.
Its very quiet out here this morning.
All the chipmunks and squirrels are sleeping.
The humming birds too.
I have been grabbed by hope
instead of expectation.
Hope sometimes feels like lack.
I say this and the sounds of nature begin.
The gentle rise of the birds calling, “Hello!”.
The hum of the insects who do not pine for anything!
The crescendos of human noises far in the background.
A plane flies overhead.
There’s a ruby glow to the light on the dried grasses.
In the shadows, the trunks of trees reach deep into the earth.
They never think of the past.
They are immersed in the drenching nature of the present.
Drinking up all their needs.
Right here and now.
The spiders’ filaments shimmer translucent turquoise.
The hawk flies by six feet above the ground.
So swiftly but they do not meet.
Then I watch the hawk at work.
Its the greatest thing in the world, to be an artist. To have an avenue for expression, passion and inspiration.
Don’t underestimate this gift in life. It can feed you emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually.
Deep in that space of creating is you. The essence, alive and kicking, waking up, being born. Again and again.
Forego the “Nay” sayers. They are only repeating their programming. Walk deeply into your life. Take it by the hands, lead, be lead. Roam and dream and make. Stay home and spin and create.
It is all one way of being. In spirit, in life, in the dark and the light.
When I thought about making art the other day, the word “transcendence” came to me. But then I realized that word can be judged in a much too narrow way. As mystical perhaps. And then it occurred to me, the word “mystery” would suffice.
As part of what I , as an artist, am both responding to and searching for.
These mysteries, these questions about life are all around us. And each unique life has its own mysteries that perhaps transcend the concrete, condition-driven world.
Momentum is the other word that came to me. The movement that begins and carries on.
The jet as it crosses the sky. The tree as it falls. The sweep of wind that trembles the flowers.
Subsiding and then gathering speed, momentum.
How to capture momentum in a still image?
The wide open feeling of running next to the ocean as the waves, in their own momentum, move towards shore. What is that thrill?
When the wind takes off and moves objects in my world, in my path.
I’m thrilled by the wind. Inspired by the gentle sway or the full force gale.
And here I am a painter so in a way I’m always stopping movement! I want to fill my stationary observation to remember movement. For the viewer to know the movement that takes them to this moment and then moves them away.
What came before? What comes after? Movement and time in painting.
This week, next week, who knows.
I am a cocoon, I am a butterfly. One minute one thing, another minute another thing.
I have coins in my pockets.
They jingle and jangle.
They slip easily out and even more easily in.
I am a weathervane. I am reading the weather.
I can be turned around, I can be steady as I sit in the sun, soaking.
You are a tree with its arms around me.
I am in the winter with you
I have to wait. Continue to wait
Am I not a jewel? Many faceted.
Am I not your deep-hearted friend? At your beck and call?
You beckon me, I come.
I am swathed in all that you love. Remember to love.
Be approachable, be sincere. I care and much is at hand.
Much is in the bounty we call life.
Your green rolling hills will come. Are here somwhere. Are just beyond the rise in the land outside your window.
Can you reach for it?
Can you see and sense it
Trouble doesn’t find you. You are not alone.
You are in the drop of water with me.
We are falling together through the air
We land together softly
We are together softly.
We are everywhere, all the time.
Come with me.
Lets cross arms, lets walk together
Let’s feel the snow melt on our faces as we melt into nothingness and everything.
Again and again.
The water drop breaks the surface of the pond.
The pond responds, the pond know without knowing.
The pond is just the pond and the drop of water joins it.
I am curious about space.
The space we see, the space we create, the space we sense inside and out.
The swirling flatness of surprizing depth
The unintended dimensionality
The surprize and delight, the wonder.
Found in the knowledge that so many worlds co-exist
That time is not a commodity
And space can function beyond time.
I am a certain type of artist.
I don’t always make
Having many shelves upon which are items left behind
Some intentional, some not.
I am in a dark forest
I am in the West Texas brush
I am by a wide, still river moving steadily to the Gulf of Mexico
I am in the willowy wilds before I reach the mountains
Where I am in a dark forest again.
I am a circle repeating
Climbing out of time into the present
My beating heart repeats longings
And I listen when I can.
Love,
A forest of We
Seeing-seeking”
A conjured space
Evident connection
The edge, the line between
Nature and man-made
The neighborhood of life
Seen and unseen
We look between the shadows
And find light.
Why is the Green Heron red?
There could be an answer but I like the question better
Do the geese always start talking and squawking before they fly?
They do this effortlessly, fly, in tandem
What names for things of beauty!
Watch them next time…let me know
The happiness of the trees goes deep into their roots
The smell of earth-mud rises
Thunder laughs and we delight
Delicious rain encompasses us
All life joins in this moment of natural joy and release
The poetics of water
Life blood so real
Falling upon us, seeping into our roots as well
I love the pink and blue stripes of early evening sky!
The winter glows and blushes its way further into magenta
The cold branches cackle and crack
As the white mink stoles of snow wrap them.
A gentle quiet envelopes the house
Piano keys sound in the distance
The deep gray silhouettes of rooftops remind me
of northern towns in Germany
As the sun sets and seals the deal on the day
These trees
like yogi trees
Stretch and sigh and creak
Moving across the sky, catching up to Spring