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| Stone & shadow astride its empty place on Ha'Penny Rd. Peacham, Vt |
Dearest Readers,
Fullness and emptiness are the yin and yang of essence. Like
the stone and its missing place in the picture above, presence and absence are
interconnected and inseparable from one another. Friend and blogger Ruth
Schowalter of Coffee with Hallelujah has
challenged fellow spiritually minded bloggers to explore the concept of fullness in honor of this week of seemingly endless full, fat August moons.
In the last year, my art has been focused on both form and non-form.
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| The Hole after a year of rain and snow |
I dug a deep hole a year ago at the Carving Studio andSculpture Center in West Rutland Vermont as part of Sculptfest 2012. I lined it
in marble shards, and created a 14 foot aspen ladder from branches that I had gathered
and lashed. It was intended to be an earthwork-meditation on my mother’s death,
and on my own aging. It was that, but it has also turned out to be simply an
aesthetically pleasing cylinder of emptiness. I visited the site in June, and
was surprised to find the hole in perfect condition. There was rain water in
the bottom from a deluge the previous night, but the director of the sculpture
site said the hole always drains out quickly. How amazing!
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| Closeup of The Hole one year later, with rainwater draining out |
While digging last summer, I began drawing images of surging
and rising, energy in direct opposition to the notion of
emptiness. I thought these pieces were wings, but the abstract swelling shapes
seem to express a wellspring of spirit bubbling from inside. The image below will be in the “More” show at
Brenau University’s Sellars Gallery in Gainsville GA, September 17th-December
15th.
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| The Fullness of Being, acrylic on kraft paper 35" x 39", 2012 |
I’ve finished two paintings of similar whirlwinds of life
since arriving here in Peacham VT, and am working on a third.
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| Night Whirlwind-acrylic and pastel on canvas 42" x 36", 2013 |
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| Golden Dawn in progress-acrylic, pastel, charcoal and ink on canvas 39.5" x 42" |
These paintings complement
the drawings of holes I did in 2011, anticipating the digging of last year’s
hole. Click here to see the hole drawings.
I leave you with three images of fullness and emptiness along Ha'penny Road, and a humorous poetic chapter from the Tao Te Ching.
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| A triangle of emptiness |
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| Strange swollen galls on an evergreen trunk |
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| Full moon from my studio window, Peacham VT 10pm |
THE USES OF NOT
Thirty spokes
Meet in the hub.
Where the wheel
isn’t
Is where it’s
useful.
Hollowed out,
Clay makes a
pot.
Where the pot’s
not
Is where it’s
useful.
Cut doors and
windows
To make a room.
Where the room
isn’t,
There’s room for
you.
So the profit in
what is
Is in the use of
what isn’t.
-Lao Tzu
Dear See See, I am pulled into the beauty of your images and thought. I read this entry when you first posted it but needed to return to it in order to go deeper into your ideas.
ReplyDeleteI'm in love with the push and pull of emptiness and fullness. And love your images of surging and rising which resulted from your digging a hole! And then your hole fills with water and empties.
Thank you for being articulate about your artwork and deep thought. My understanding of you and the world expands. My life is made better because of you.
Thank you also for the Lao Tzu poem. Congratulations on your image being accepted into the "More" show.