There has been a shift, somehow, in ages past that has resulted in this place I now stand. I sometimes wonder what is the real place I am standing in. Is my perspective limited in some way? Ought I shift my viewpoint in order to really see what is around me?
12 years ago I realized that I had to do something with my artistic ability. The press of kids and work had left me with no room or desire to pursue art. But I couldn’t leave it lying fallow any longer – I was not only short-changing myself but I was depriving my family as well. It is one thing to know that a possibility exists. It is something else to begin the long process of realizing the possibility. So I decided to start drawing. Drawing is the basic artistic skill that I wanted to develop as a first step to being able to express my artistic visions.
I’ve heard different times that people want to know the stories that the work acts as a window for . . . I wanted to sweep the sky into the earth, the surface into the depths, the ephemeral into the eternal. I wanted to play with the paint.
Many, many thousands of years ago there were vast lands that now lie beneath the oceans of our world. Before the collapse of the glaciers and the rise of the waters people had a long time to knit themselves into these places that we now only can visit in dreams or visions. The Boatman guides his craft on a surface that is now hundreds of feet deep beneath the waves and 15,000 years deep in our forgotten past.
I am participating yet again in the Bayview Art Tour. This is when I open up my house and the public is free to come in and see my work.
So yet again I’ve submitted 3 pieces to the AWOL gallery annual Square Foot Show. This is a Toronto show that requires all submissions to measure exactly 12″ x 12″, be no more than 5″ thick, and able to be hung squarely on a wall. The gallery hangs one, two or all three of an artists submissions depending.
The Power of Dance
The Crane Visits
Spring Rising
……
I was thinking about the stories of time gone by. Stories that have become myths. And these myths in turn, as the ages pass, have slipped away. New people, new lands, new stories, each in turn slipping into that deep and faraway place we sometimes connect into and call it a dream.
I’ve got a couple of my Kuwaiti Dancers entered into the Spring show for the DVAC. They are easy to spot – nobody submitted anything at all like my drawings 🙂
I’ve been to Kuwait City a couple of times now and I am always struck by how creative and beautiful the modern towers are there. They look like the sails of pearl fishing boats, or waves, or palm trees. Curves, insets, spectacular uses of openings and windows. The first time I was ever made aware of the architecture of that place was when I ran across a photo of the Water Towers of Kuwait. Amazing. They are even better in person. And if you go up inside please note that the deserts in the restaurant are delicious.
The hotel in Kuwait City didn’t have any place for me to sit outside and enjoy the view, so I ended up spending a lot of time in our room drawing. Luckily I’d prepared for this, and was able to get a set of 4 Tree Dancer drawings finished.
