Encounter at the Edge of Eden

What Happens at the Edge of Eden?

Encounter at the Edge of Eden

Encounter at the Edge of Eden remains ambiguous as we observe a group of herons (known as a “siege” of herons) and the Book of Genesis’ first woman. The painting considers that very moment of response to the unexpected… and if the unexpected is a powerful force?

Fight, Flight or Freeze - How is a person wired? How is “the first person” created?  How much have we evolved in all of this time?

The image does not acknowledge biblical ideas of right and wrong, but instead focusses on the internal workings of the animal we are, especially in our relationship with the rest of the natural world.

The herons surround her, shrinking the space as they stretch, extending wings and necks. Her surprise and vulnerability shows in her contorted back, to which is pointed a very solid beak, touched by dawn’s light. This is a situation that offers the possibility for two very opposing outcomes. Only the viewer can decide and that depends on how that individual is wired.

Morning Breaks, Night Falls

 Morning Breaks, Night Falls is the only small work that accompanies my Powerscapes series.

Painting while the world was on lockdown, I found my whole body was so tight, I could only work on details and small works. I had some large pieces plotted out, but didn’t have the physical capability and fluidity I needed to make progress on them. Everything was atrophied. 

But this little painting embodies all of the concepts of the larger pieces. It is the seed of the rest of the series,  capturing that motion and life in the quiet hills.

Hills of Wairarapa, Settling

Hills of Wairarapa , Settling, Map collage, mixed media on board, 32x77cm

Unending hills into mountains into sky: the unending space humbles the small structure. Pockets of thick bush and rows of groomed trees and fields float in the swells and dips of this ocean of earth and rock.

In humility is strength and resolve to understand this world and persevere. You have chosen this world and this world will show you how to thrive.

The map showing through speaks to our ideas of trying to measure, categorize and contain the enormity of land and sky. Simultaneously, the maps extend ideas of space beyond the physical painting.

It is not man who settles the land, but the land who settles the man.

Ngawi

It’s common for an artist to speed past their best ideas. In NZ there are very few place to pull over to the side of the road that don’t involve ditches. Zipping along a windy tight road with erosion spills on one side and the ocean cliff on the other,  the steep mountain side rising above of Ngawi burn themselves into my vision-memory. I make the trip three more times before I find the perfect sandy turnoff at the right time of day to get the drawing I wanted.

The fishing village seems dwarfed, inconsequential. I transcribe the houses as small neutral dashes between the cliffs and the ocean. 

Man attempts to settle land, but truly, it is land that settles man, allows us to be here until it is  time for the earth to move again. We small creatures must move fast enough to adjust.

Tararua Range as Ocean

Clouds, mist, mountain ranges and rolling hills all flow together- the “Landscape” as continual movement and tides of the ocean. 

The rich growth and lush greens of New Zealand’s rainy winter emulates the greens of the ocean. The pitted hills create a visual rhythm the leads you into the mountains beyond. The heavy mists and fog of the sky toy with the space between Heaven and Earth. This piece is a visual dance.

Buddha as Mountain

Buddha as Mountain (Flatpoint)  

If I were any lighter, I’d be blown right off the hillside. The sun is low, wind picking up -it blows the pencil right out of my hand, like a beast. It’s toying with me. I’d driven by this grouping of hills earlier, I don’t know if I’ll be this way again so this is my only chance. I dug in, leaned against the wind and tried my best to get every curve, hill, pit fighting the wind for my pencil at every move.

The line drawing is an observation of the mountain. I know if I didn’t see it while I was drawing.. but when I pull the sketch out later, the hooded figure is clear, the motion is clear. It is very much an individual and not a still pile of earth. Tied to the earth in a grounded strong connection .. but rising up in motion in all ways… the changing treeline dancing on its shoulders.

The lines of depths, ups, downs and swirling pits .. with its own palette, I find this language of telling the mountain’s story.

Glenburn Station

Glenburn Station as Sun Sets

The behemoth mountain looms in shadow, a powerful entity, its personal history tattooed all over. Scars of earthquakes, smooth rolling curves of past lives under the water, pitted divots once filled with bush all reveal a time lapse of erosion and growth encapsulated. The changing shape is not weakness, but new expanse and evolution of surface. 

Looking Out from Te Mata Peak (Rays of Sunshine) , acrylic on paper, 40x47"

Looking Out from Te Mata Peak, NZ

There is a visual quality of liquid in the mountains and hills, as if they may alter shape at any moment, move to their own tides, flow away as you blink.  A long drive through hypnotically repetitive and symmetrical hills of Hawke’s Bay cements this idea of hills as water. On that hottest of days.. I spend only enough time by the oceanside to map out a way to a mountain. I make it to the top of Te Mata Peak and look out over another type of ocean, one of stone, soil and sand...crashing waves, rolling tides frozen in the hills but alive just the same.

Cliffs of Castlepoint

Cliffs of Castlepoint

I’ve never seen anything like it…

“Those formations were once the ocean floor.” The guide says, matter-of-factly. He explains the geographical history: an island pulled back under the water and pushed up again with all the power of colliding tectonic plates. 

New Zealand’s Milford Sound readjusted my eyesight. Even the most tranquil hills are now embued with the power of oceans, volcanoes, and tumultuous shifts.

Castlepoint is breathtaking. I wonder if this is volcanic creation, a tectonic thrust or if it was a reductive force, the work of erosion.

The water is a strange green, strange to my New England eyes anyway. The waves hint at other peaks and ledges just below the surface. I wonder if the subaquatic terrain will be pushed to the surface one day, remapped, remodelled and redefined with roads, homes and hiking trails.

Cliffs of Castlepoint integrates all of these ideas of continual motion and recreation of the environment. Orange references volcanic activity, and the whale tail is a Máori symbol of strength, wisdom and moving forward. Maps of cities and roads peek out in the hills that lay deep below.

Hills on Fire

In my Mapscape Series, layers of mixed maps, geometric lines and paint create new lands. This work explores our need to organize the complex into simplified and our relationship to the natural world. Our environment is a quiet partner in our thought process, and is interwoven with our personal identities. Natural or political events alter the landscape and boundaries in the blink. What stands on the map as final fact is truthful very ephemeral.

These works are so organic, the maps have so much visual input. I often work the collage aspect with a few base colors and leave it alone for a time, so I can approach it with fresh eyes. The collage sits quietly at a point. I like the visual structure. I like the color pallet. The story teller in me wants some small adjustment, one little thing that would lend narrative to the piece.

Time passes as jobs keep me from the studio. When I return, I dive into new drawings, responding to the news of Hong Kong Umbrella Protests and fires raging through CA. Again I address my not quite finished collage piece. The torn and reassembled map pieces present a landscape of mixed places, boundaries destroyed, populations combined and measurements inaccurate. I enhance thwart tones to amplify symbols of fire, fire which also recreates the landscape. I add a thin piece of fresh map to the bottom of the composition. I mark it with five small red circles, the California towns where the fire remains active. This addition infuses the shredded maps with the missing ingredient, intent, little red circles of homes in devastation and lives in transition.

On the way to Hawke's Bay

Driving to the ocean, the hills on either side, so rhythmic in form and shape,

Splash and crash into each other like the waves that made them,

The waves of the ocean that I go to visit.

On a hot day my only thought as I drive to Hawke’s Bay from Masterton: “How can anyone live so far from the ocean?” The endless hilled landscape answers my question. As I drive through the hills, they become waves. It strikes me, This is the ocean, the ocean floor of the past. The hills hold all of the oceans movement and power of of its soothing rhythm.

This painting is a combination of elements that are a constant joy of my surroundings in Wairarapa. The antlers of the red deer speak of the bounty of the rolling hills.Antlers also speak to the beauty and complexity of life here with gnarled twists and multiple points of growth. Historical planes fly into the aerial-map clouds in the sky, with the sound of small engines and past explorations. In this land of motion, even the open sky is measured and mapped!

The aerial maps of NZ were donated through a member of New Zealand Pacific Studio. Great thanks!

Map collage, mixed media on board, 32x77cm/13x30”

Poem into Painting

One of my projects as fellow in New Zealand Pacific Studio’s AiR is a collaboration with Public Poem Project headed by local author, Chris Daniels. Her Public Poems are large scale posters of local writers’ poetry placed all over the town’s center. The words are large, printed on bold colored background, local voices artful thoughts, for all to see, they break the pace of the to-do list and insert a lovely thought.

I was given a poem to create an image. I painted a stylized nightscape with bold colors as to stand out on its wall, but also allow the words to have their own weight in the composition. The poem stays with me though. I keep responding to it…. It creeps into my map-collage work as well…

In response to the poem and a few wild windy night drives from Masterton to Wellington.

The poem has three natural visual elements, the mountain, the sky, the moon. The poem uses deceptively simple imagery not for an observation of the natural world, but a much more complex meditation of expectations. Mountains ask for something specific; the reply is not the anticipated answer.

If Mountains look for warmth, they get light instead. Maybe we focus on the response, the thing, the Moon. What strikes me is the acknowledgment of the question. Speaking with Ra Smith, a Maori historian and community activist, I’m told the Moon is symbol of wisdom. This brings another beautiful layer to Sky’s response. Maybe the Mountains’ experience of discomfort and hardship is knowledge that will bring wisdom. Moon does not resolve Mountains’ wants, it brings the situation to light.

This image is looking down on the mountaintops, a sky’s view. The NZ maps used are donated from NZPS.

TARARUAS

The tall mountains

draw their cloaks of green

over their

shoulders

against the cold

and pray to

the gods of the skies

who answers

by hanging the

lantern of the moon.

Gareth Winter

This has been a heart filling experience! Spending time with Gareth at the Masterton Archives, learning about the history of Masterton and talking about his writing has been invaluable and joyous! Likewise, I am honored Ra spent his valuable time on me educating me about Maori culture with our awesome day trip adventure!

Acknowledgement (Teraruas) Map collage, mixed media on board 32x77cm, 13x30”

Work in Progress for wall poster design for Public Poetry Project, Masterton NZ

Art is my place to think...

People quickly say artists “express themselves”. That doesn’t seem to fit my process. Yes, I’m in there, my thoughts, my voice; but, I approach it as a place to think as opposed to an object of personal declaration.

I often work for months at a time (movie work is consuming) and when I finally get into my studio, it’s like checking in with the world. The moment I sat down w/news of Umbrella Protests in Hong Kong and LA on fire, the world overwhelmed me. I didn’t set off to weigh in on these things. I made images to spend time with these events, to think deeply on them. To organize color and composition to bring some visual order to the emotional chaos of what was happening. I guess taking an enormous subject and paring it down and reshaping it allows my brain to wrap around a number of facets, from the politics of a situation to an individual’s experience.

I leave room for the viewer too, a place for them to think.

Floating Gallery

Many years ago, fresh out of art school and very aware of my lack of “connections” to the gallery world, I had a little think tank.. I knew artists who made brilliant work, but were not comfortable publicizing themselves. I knew people who loved art but were intimidated by the gallery world. I had a hunch that hosting a group of interesting, skilled sincere people in a home setting would lead to great things. Floating Gallery was born.

I gathered hardworking, innovative under-represented artists to exhibit. We had monthly home-hosted exhibits, every show was different. What resulted? Connections, sales, collaborations and amazing new ideas!

Rhyme and Reason

My knee twinges, begging me to call it a day. I know this must be my last run, the last run of the season.

And so, upon reaching the top of the mountain, I sit down in the snow to take a last look. The power of cold air on a mountaintop is undeniable. There are two trails down. I choose Rhyme, the one I have not been down as my last run. I had time to make a solid decision on the ride up in a squeaky outdated chairlift.

Only a few are left on the slopes at this time of the day.

There is a thin gentleman in a pale yellow snow jacket with a matching cell phone. He’s easily in his 70s. He looks from his phone to the lift and mountains beyond. He must be waiting for friends on the lift.

I pick myself up and move toward my chosen trail and wish him a good day. He holds his phone out to me. “Will you take a picture of me?” Oh. He is alone. And his soft accent whispers of the Alps. He is alone and he is far from home. Curiosities well up about who this man is, what he has been through and how he ended up here. I take pictures of him with mountains this way and that, hoping one will capture his lone adventure properly.

The lift is closing, a sure sign of the finality of this run and a certain kinship of we two strangers. You see in this moment, we own this mountain top, we two are friends, if only for a moment.

I wonder how far he’s traveled, who he’s with, if my pictures are good enough to capture his visit (they never are from a phone) He thanks me as I hand the pale yellow phone back to him. I strap into my snowboard and he deftly swooshes down Reason, the trail I’ve already been. I almost follow, so we might be friends for that much longer. But he is faster than my made up mind. He chose Reason and I chose Rhyme.

The base of this painting is a collage of unrelated maps. These maps fade in and out of the image and the key figure as well. This painting is not about the man, nor the mountain. It is the fleeting moment when you connect with another person and the strange assortment of trails taken to cross paths.