How can my process of meaning making be distinguished from the ordinary process of making? Ritual? Can I accept that? I turn away from ritual now mostly from habit. It echos a repetition of actions that are done so many times they lose their meaning. I question those assertions and assumptions, reactions that have become automatic to almost become the ritual that I habitually reject.
Read More
I struggle with seeing how I personally cultivate a reciprocal relationship with the land. Every personal relationship to the land is different and every place also presents different relationships and connections. Reflection brought some clarification.
Read More
What would happen if fear and guilt is dropped from conversations about the environment? What would it feel like to think of ourselves as part of nature rather than something separate that we need to fix? What if the land is internalized so that we are in fact, healing ourselves? What if we change perspective to be in relationship with the earth?
Read More
Landscapes are ecosystems in fluid motion. They are never static, like in landscape photograph or landscape painting. The only way to be true to the story of the land is to pay attention to the way that it sways through time. Time is the metronome that keeps the beat for the rhythm of place. Without time, there is no rhythm, no music of the land. We feel this rhythm within us when we feel we know a place. It is a part of us.
Read More
Perception has a bias for objects. Objects contain information about the world and our surroundings: they can be obstacles – you need to know where they are to avoid them when walking across a room. Objects can be tools; they can be intriguing, beautiful and fascinating; they can be threatening. They frequently demand attention. We see objects for good reasons.
What is an object without all of the space around it, within it, and through it? Can an object be seen without the space? Can we understand something more complexly by switching focus on the spaces that the objects define?
There are things that I have learned from all of the artwork that I have seen over the years. There is artwork that catches my attention immediately. Sometimes I really like it. But soon after I move on and my attention is pointed elsewhere, the artwork dissipates. It is gone from my memory and mind like smoke dissolving in the ether.
The ones that remain intact do not necessarily demand my attention immediately. Sometimes they are the ones that quietly wait. They do not reveal themselves in a flash, all at once and then fade. They do just the opposite: they build slowly.
I wanted to make something fast. I see other artists producing so much work in such a short period of time. I want to do that too. Drawing, I thought, would be fast. How great would it be if I could have 30 new drawings in a month!
But the truth is, I’m slow. I am very slow. Honestly, I wouldn’t be satisfied any other way.
I run before the sun rises for the opportunity to be alone in the silence of the forest. I run in the predawn to replace the chatter in my head with the stillness of the dark forest. It is within these spaces of stillness that ideas and illumination into the next creative step slip in before the chatter of the day resumes once again.
Read More
Recognition begins fairly quickly. Knowing is revealed slowly. Familiarity opens itself to a knowledge that stretches beyond a perceptual knowing of a place to an integrated embodied knowing. It’s a knowing that happens when you can sense the rhythms and patterns without being overtly aware of them. This knowing is sensitive. It may feel like knowing something from the gut, but the gut doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s really a knowing that comes from connection. If the connection is disrupted, it is felt.
Read More
Every river has a unique color palette, and they all fluctuate with the seasons. It’s like the color is a facet of the river’s personality. And now, through satellites and long-term data collection, we can clearly see how the colors are drifting away from their traditional cyclical patterns. The personalities of rivers are changing over time.
Read More
The creative process often feels dark and murky. Sometimes shining a light on it makes it worse. There is no past. There is no future. There is only this one line being drawn right now. Only the present exists.
Read More
The creative process spirals. It is not a neat, straight trajectory that marches forward into the future. Concepts, materials, and techniques can be pulled from far in the past and spiraled into a new body of work.
Read More
Why does the forest smell like roses in January?
Shut out the light and align your breath to what you hear. You start to hear the stories that are told by water.
Fairy circles, wood anatomy and water – What stories can we derive about the natural world by understanding what underlies self-organizing patterns? Evolutionary biologist and mathematician Corina Tarnita looks to Alan Turing for a key.
Read More
An idea starts to form. If it asks for something else, then the idea might have legs. The idea doesn’t necessarily need to have good strong running legs. At first, it just needs to be able to stand up on its own. If it does, then there is the possibility that it could develop strong running legs.
Read More
Reflections: OPEN on view at Anti-Aesthetic Gallery November 2 – December 21. A sidewalk exhibition of video work by Gray Space.
Read More
What is an “episodic lifetime artist in residence?” On November 2 at 7 PM Corvallis Art Guild will feature a discussion with Eugene artist Leah Wilson, a multi-media visual artist and writer in Eugene. Her presentation will focus on Place as Collaborator.
Read More
Arts-Sci at OSU will feature a discussion with Eugene artist Leah Wilson, a multi-media visual artist and writer in Eugene. Her presentation will focus on her new installation in the Forest Science Complex. Listening to the Forest spans the scale of an old-growth tree from the cellular level, to one growing in the forest. The installation creates a contemplative visual experience of light, color, shadow, and rhythm.
Read More
Monday, September 7, 2020 was a hot, windy day. On the evening of September 7th, the Holiday Farm Fire ignited and the McKenzie watershed burst into flames. The next morning was one of the darkest mornings that I have ever experienced.
Read More
June 7 – July 26, At Liberty Arts, Bend, OR.
Opening Reception June 7, 5pm.
Divergence is a group exhibition curated by Andries Fourie, exploring the artistic strategies of eight artists who work in different ways and investigate a variety of subjects, but also share an affinity for elegance, technical skill and design.
The photographs, paintings, drawings and prints of Hong Chun Zhang, Susan Rochester, Nathan Lewis, Analee Fuentes, Tallmadge Doyle, Leah Wilson, Kirsten Furlong and Frank Miller show us that conceptually-driven art can also be visually sophisticated and beautiful: a balanced marriage of form and content. Their work celebrates the fact that artists who follow different visual paths can still reach the same destination.
Leah Wilson’s solo exhibition of work from the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest titled, Leah Wilson: Collecting Evanescence will be seen at Lane Community College Main Campus Art Gallery in Eugene, OR. January 7 – February 6, 2019. Opening Reception January 10 from 4:30 – 6pm.
Read More
