I'm interested in making connections in my work with the seasons and cycles of nature. I admire the earth's resilience in the face of human encroachment and destruction and am also drawn to the natural cycles of aging, decay and regeneration - ever beautiful and impermanent.
I decided to start a new group of works this Fall by paying attention to the colors around me and observe how they shift with each season. I started cutting out shapes to collage and moving them around, making a first "rocks and cliffs" sample to help me visualize possibilities. Even simple shapes, textures and colors can suggest to others what I see and feel.
Most of the reference photos of rocks and cliff formations I’ve taken are from vacations - stunning cliff formations like the Grand Canyon or the red rocks in Arizona. Now I'm seeking out the cliffs and rock formations where I live and considering ways to interpret them abstractly. This photo is near a waterfall about an hour's drive from my home. I appreciate the ragged outcroppings - they look like layers of shale, worn and broken over time. I can translate these visually in some way, have many options. Finding the methods that please me the most is part of the challenge of being a creative.
One of my favorite forays this summer was to the Salmon River Falls State Preserve, which is close to our summer camp in Bernhards Bay, NY. I saw both wonderful formations of rocks, and beautiful found lines in how they intersect as the waters have shaped them over time.
Since my work is abstract and not representational, it offers an additional challenge; how to create a surface that captures the feeling of rocks and stones and rock formations without making them realistic.
My first samples have been informative and spontaneous. I keep getting new ideas for what mediums to use and ways to embellish them - drawn or painted shapes and lines, or cut and collaged lines and shapes.
I tried cutting some lines today radiating out from a grouping of rocks to suggest striations. They're not even glued down, just a suggestion of one way I might proceed. There is a kind of gleefulness in creating a challenge like this and then inventing ways to try to make it work, tackling an idea from several different directions just for the stimulation of trying to find more than one way to solve the various problems that arise. I love the moments when a new idea pops in and I can start imagining ways to make it work visually.
Striations seem to be a hallmark of the rock formations I see in my region, and I will continue to make quick samples to try out the various ideas that keep popping into my mind.
Comments