But it's About Nature....

I've been really exhausted this week. I've been putting a lot of studio time in, late hours, going to bed late and then not sleeping well. I've blamed my exhaustion on those factors, but I realized it is something more. Something is draining my energy.

I have lost my connection with nature.

I used to spend a significant amount of time outdoors everyday. The site, sounds, smells fuel my spirit. And I realized that I have not spent time outdoors in months - maybe even as long as a year - or more! Too busy. Too busy with work. Too busy with school. Too busy just trying to keep everyday life going. It's not so much that my energy is being drained, it's that my energy is not being renewed because of this prolonged disconnection with nature.

When the books I had ordered arrived this past week I was awed by the photos (mostly aerial/satellite/space-shuttle photos of the earth). Many of these photos look like abstract paintings. The colors, patterns and textures are absolutely breathtaking. The drip/hairdryer paintings I've been working on are inspired by these aerial images of water flowing down from the mountains into rivers and out to the sea.

These books reminded me that my connection to nature is a huge part of who I am, and what my art is about. My photos may be macro abstract images, and the paintings I'm working on are abstract, but both come from, and are inspired by nature.

So yesterday I went to Walden Pond for what used to be my daily walk around the pond. It was cold and icy and the walking a bit treacherous but it felt great to be there again. I brought my pocket camera (just in case I was inspired by something) and started the process of renewing my spirit. Of reclaiming my energy.

This helps me artistically.

Yet it points to an inherent contradiction...

In my work, I am interested in an abstraction that has no apparent reference to an "object" or "space" which then becomes theoretically and physically complex because the abstractions I am creating come from nature which are objects living in space.

Maybe my discomfort in trying to make the unfamiliar feel familiar really is about my separation from the physicality of nature into another place that is based solely on thought. Thoughts are not physical and if they don't occupy space where do they live exactly? And how can my art (that comes from nature) reflect the non-physicality of thought living in an existence that doesn't include space?

Studio Work this week...

I focused on this one piece all week, trying to be very conscious about my decisions. I plan to finish it today and over the weekend, and move on to the million other ideas I have. The last step will be to add two more layers of lines that represent a vibrational energy (influenced by photos of fluid motion) that interacts with the shapes that are already there. Are these shapes objects? Or are they just a grouped set of lines?




Walden Pond
And these are just a couple of snaps from my Walden walk that interest me.

This one is of lichen on rocks. I may use this as a ground for a painting...If I think it's viable, I may go back with my real camera and get better shots of these.



And this is just the privacy glass in the bathroom in the parking lot, but I like how it has "naturally" altered the "nature" that it's trying to obscure the view from. This may show up as a ground in a painting too...