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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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