A place is also determined by the micro or macro perspective, not just by our own myopic views of it. I've mentioned previously that I would like to work on aerial views of a place, having spent a lot of time flying in and out of Missoula in the past two years. Aerial views are the counterpoint to both my interest in minute details and my reality here on the ground. They help me to see that I am both small and insignificant, yet simultaneously a contribution to the life force on this planet. This is my first attempt at combining the macro and micro world. This piece is titled Lichen on the Valley. It's quite literal. The Missoula valley is surrounded by the Northern Rockies, and I've covered it with lichen. This piece consists of two layers. The bottom layer is a line drawing in ink on cotton rag paper. The top layer is a dots drawing in ink on vellum. The vellum does not rest snugly against the bottom layer, which then gives this piece an ethereal feel (perhaps not clear in this image). A dots drawing means that I have created my image with thousands and thousands of tiny ink dots. To me this piece looks like an old worn tapestry. And can you see the thread of highway 90 cutting diagonally through it?
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LOVE this piece of art! I'm always inspired when I fly. Aerial views are so incredible!
ReplyDeleteThis "drawing" is beautifully intense, and intensely beautiful -- especially in person -- a total shock to perception, for being so generous in offering its own! I say "drawing" (in quotes), because "drawing" seems too mechanical and limiting a designation for what is essentially a total revelation of landscape in form. What is so startling is that the MICRO and the MACRO are nearly identical in pattern and detail, only on massively different scales. Though this is a representation of the Missoula Valley, it could just as easily be exactly a representation of lichen on a rock, or worm trails in a leaf, or wood -- which makes me think that what we see in natural forms, no matter how microscopic or monumental, are truly micro- and macrocosmic incarnations of a broader, more total design. In other words, the endlessly replicable proof of exactly what you said, that you feel "both small and insignificant, yet simultaneously a contribution to the life force on this planet." Your art then, and here, is a prism of that, illuminating multiple worlds simulaneously, all of them folded into this one.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brandon.
ReplyDeleteI do believe in a broader more total design from which all design comes or that no design is truly unique. I enjoy looking for patterns, especially ones that are innumerably presented.