Lately there is a huge explosion of energy from within and without for me, life is full to overbrimming, everything seems so ALIVE! I am intensely aware of this as it translates into my work. I feel I am no longer observing the natural world around me but rather, in a reversal of roles or perception, the natural world seems to be observing me. Beautiful article posted by @lindahollier last night on twitter, called Subject-Object Reversal: http://integrallife.com/member/balder/blog/subject-object-reversal-tsk-practice-notes Linda commented on the blog post by saying, “I have a definite sense of being held intimately 'within' a sentient field -- like I'm re-entering an animistic worldspace, surrounded by many different intelligences or knowing presences.”
I know that feeling well as it is filling my whole body with it's presence and knowing. This body experience is what I am so desperately trying to recreate on the canvas.
My head continually intervenes w/ thoughts and concepts but I am able to relax into a more intuitive space through listening and moving to music.
I consider every moment of the day to be part of the painting process. Walking and breathing w/ the trees in the park, inhaling the fragrance of the earth, noticing the trembling of the tender new baby green all stirs me deeply. On the way to the studio yesterday, seduced by the spring light and warmth, I sat in the park reading for a good while before going inside to paint. Reading "Ecological Intelligence" by Ian McCallum and want to share some of what I was reading and found so beautiful and integral to this particular painting:
"Our humanity is not defined by human fellowship alone but includes a subtle yet essential dependency on animals and landscape as well. The web or the field of life is inclusive not only of our immediate surroundings, our geology, and our biology, but of deep space and time also...be continually mindful of the patterns of connections between all things, vigilant to one's participation in a field of life. It is what Rumi meant when he said: "If you are not with us faithfully, then you are causing terrible damage, but if you are, then you are helping people you don't know and have never seen." The poet is asking us to hold the patterns of connection, to hold the chemistry, To pray unceasingly is to think molecular. It is to see the small things, including oneself, in the bigger picture. It means being able to look at a green leaf differently, to see the science and the poetry in it, to be aware that you and the leaf are linked. It is an invitation to experience the transformation process of carbon dioxide and water to provide not only the energy necessary for the growth and survival of the plant, but producing the life-giving molecules of oxygen that we breath in. It is to have a sense of privilege at being privy to the powerful yet delicate connection and the interdependence between chlorophyll molecules that produce oxygen and hold one's breath and then to give it back again in the realization that the chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are almost identical. What makes them different is the presence of a single trace element in each molecule-magnesium in the former, giving plants their green coloring, and iron in the latter, the reason why blood is red.
This is EXACTLY what I was painting! And I knew today was the day to darken and deepen the painting, beginning to add the greens of the forest breath atop the
blood red pulse of Life, all of life, ours, the animals, the plants, the earth herself. The process continues...
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