Two Feet Down and a Light Dancer

A journey into abstraction is an experiment in using color, value and texture to reach for meaning beyond the literal. Some art can be enjoyed for the pure pleasure of the color and form. At other times a work can also draw the viewer into the process of finding their own meaning. While both responses are valid, is one more lasting than the other?

Tension and Context

The little building had a single door with a turquoise frame and a narrow barred window. A few of those details provide tension and context for a reflection on this small piece of the urban landscape. In contrast, “Hooked”, below, is purely a landscape of the mind, with no detail left to link it to reality. That level of abstraction is disturbing to some,…

Visions in Blue and Gold

When the image above first began to take shape, it seemed as though the weight of the air was pressing down, creating a pocket of intense heat. But that vision transformed itself and soon the calming blues were bubbling up out of that spot as if out of a cauldron heated by the earth itself, bringing light and a peaceful clarity. Letting the work…

Cloudscapes from the Heartland

Cloudscapes from the Heartland are two more examples from a series of abstracts begun about a month ago. Originally meant to be evocative studies in color, texture and motion, some have become suggestive of landscapes and other scenes. Both of these images began as landscape photographs — one of Sarasota Bay in Florida, and the other of a wind generator in the flat lands…

Singular by the Sea

Two singular items. Their colors and shapes speak. Does it matter what they are, or is it better just to wonder what they might be?

The Cross

The cross is one of humanity’s more ancient and ubiquitous symbols. An early interpretation was as a representation of the intersection between the divine (the vertical line) and the earthly (the horizontal line). In modern times this has been trivialized in our use of the cross on road signs to signify an intersection of roads ahead. The cross has also represented the division of…

Details, Details

Understanding the “big picture” is important. But that doesn’t mean one should ignore the details in life. Sometimes, in fact, hints of the big picture can be glimpsed in the day’s details, like the mystery of a starry sky hidden in the door of an old Chevrolet, or the brief but brilliant song of a beach sunflower on a sunlit seaside dune. Stories exist…

Enchantment

Concern with the modern world’s problems can lead to frustration not knowing how to help fix them. But in that frustration and the rush of daily life it is easy to lose sight of why it matters. The editors’ comment in the March-April edition of Orion Magazine says it well: “What is much harder is to live life in a way that does not…

Thinly Veiled

Arriving in Florida after 12 years in the Caribbean, I find myself surrounded by a manicured suburban environment, rather than the inherently picturesque disorder of nature and barely restrained tropical decay more common in the Caribbean. Perhaps it is the difference that makes me notice, instead of take it for granted. The gloss on the landscape along with the shiny baubles for sale in…

Bromeli-eyed Inflorescence

People often anthropomorphize, sometimes seeing facial or other human features in plants or inanimate scenes, and often ascribing human feelings and emotions to pets, to wild animals, and even to important religious abstractions. This human tendency to anthropomorphize can provide comfort or cause unease, depending on the situation. The desire to find human attributes in the non-human may reflect our social nature and the…

Changes

We are moving. After nearly 12 years living in the Caribbean we decided last fall that a return to the continent would be the next step in the adventure we began back in 1999 when we sailed off into the sunset. Of course, the islands do not let one go easily. It is only through luck, and a large dose of serendipity that we…

Windows

A window in a wall between two spaces allows us to look from one space into the other. Looking in, we are often looking from a public space into a more private one. Looking out, we are more often in the private space viewing the more public space beyond. Of course, there are times that relationship is more ambiguous, or even reversed. As a…