"To see the world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wildflower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."
-William Blake
Land Ho!
I am now one with the land.
The land which is sand, that is.
As, when you go to bed with sandy feet, you wake up the next morning with a good deal of it in bed with you. Four to five a.m. spent in futile hand-sweeping.
(Eternity in an hour?)
I begin the day by removing all of the bedding and shaking it over the deck railing.
After the morning ritual, I set to work on a piece I (for now) am calling 'Green Bather'.
I have brought limited resource material with me. But I have a desire to represent the figure as a reflection of my time here on Ocracoke Island. What could be better than a seated woman, donning or doffing footwear (for the zillionth time).
Perhaps she is shaking out the sand.
It is continuous.
And amongst my scraps of visual inspiration, my torn out images, pinned and fluttering to the fishnet window covering, is a two by three inch reproduction of 'Woman Putting On Her Slippers' (1843) by Danish painter
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.
Eckersberg's image is my model, my starting point. I use a grid to divide the space and get down a rough outline of the form - the angle of the tipped head, shoulders, arm, trunk, legs. I am in love with the slight turn of the body. The arm stretching downward.
I am not interested in (Eckersberg's) detail. But the overall. The light and colour.
Or rather, light, shadow and colour.
Using acrylics, I lay on some paint. I find the darkest dark and the lightest light. Moving from foreground to background, negative space back to figure. Just the colour, the lights, the darks, and the image begins to take shape. I use the colours of the earth - of ground and tree, the greens and blues of the sea, the oranges of sunset, creamy whites and earthy reds.
'Green Bather' is becoming the land.
And it dawns on me.
She is a Landscape.
All of a sudden it is crystal clear. Even if I am working on a representation of the human figure, my work is a landscape. It is not just about a representation of the human figure, but equally about the space around her.
It is about colour and light. And a time and place.
And me as the painter.
It is about my process.
And where I am when I paint it.
But also about the viewer. And where the viewer stands to look at it. And the space between.
Our sense of place.
Perhaps the night of sand in my bed has grounded me. A constant (itchy) reminder of the earth under our feet and all around. As I now see the all-encompassing importance to talk (visually) about 'Sense of Place' in my work.
The evening drawing is influenced by all of this sudden clarity.
And influenced by our late afternoon beach walk, with land and sand underfoot. This island is an ideal place to think about the land, (being on the very fringe).
The horizon line sharp. Greys and greens and whites. Golden light sparkling on water.
I call to Chester, now way way off and along the beach, sniffing around a washed up tree limb. He looks at me defiantly and before moseying back, has a long long roll in the sand.
He is grounded too.
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