A Question of Balance

A Question of Balance

So sorry for the long absence! For those of you who know me through this blog, the title of this post and this new little piece in the MissouriBendStudio shop will come as no surprise. Always a quest for balance in life. We've had some turmoil and sadness in our lives of late, as we've lost my husband's father rather suddenly, only a very short time after a cancer diagnosis. Besides dealing with the loss, there are any number of practical issues that must be taken care of in these situations. And for me, the death of a loved one, inevitably brings up the larger issues that we like to keep rather hidden away. It's a time of reflection....about how one lives out a life, the interconnections of family and friends, as well as coming to terms with the inevitable passing of the elder  generation. I don't know about you, but I still find it disconcerting that, in my own family, I am now part of the elder generation. Our time is fleeting and this dance we call life is so precious....it's a call to live life fully, to care and to be present in the here and now.  I've missed the conversation here....how is everyone?!

A Walk Through The Universe: Balance

As I thought about "balance" this week, I traveled a good many places in my mind and found myself investigating a number of sources for the path.  I read a little more about Japanese aesthetics, a topic which I've been quite drawn to in the last few months, as the work that I am making seems to come from a place that does not make a separation between art and life.  I recently read Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren and very much identified with the beauty that wabi-sabi embodies in form and spirit. In the West, we tend to think of balance in terms of equals, a fifty-fifty kind of thing, but in Japanese aesthetics there is balance if all parts make the whole.  There is an elegance in the assymetrical balance that is a reflection of life.  

I turned to Donna Watson, a mixed-media collage painter, whose work and life seem to embody the principles that manifest themselves in quiet balance.  As many readers of this blog know, Donna has a wonderful and inspiring blog, Layers, which you can access here.  Donna has provided some beautiful images and her own reflections on balance below.

Faded Memory

Reminders

The Way

Offering

Nesting



I consider myself a mixed media collage painter.  Balance is important to me on several different levels.  As a painter, balance is one of the principles of design.  This is an important principle in my paintings, as I try to balance elements such as texture.  I may have a large area of texture in one area, and smaller patches of texture balanced with smooth areas in other parts of the painting.  I use the same principle in my collages.  I will move around pieces of paper that includes text, which I see as texture, until I decide there is a balance with other elements of texture, color, and shape.  Balance adds to the quiet essence in my work.  On another level, my art work in my studio helps me balance my life with my family.  This balance enriches my relationships, my beliefs and outlook on life, which then influences my art work in my studio.  On even a larger level, my gardens and nature really influence my work.   All my work in my gardens has to do with balance.  My choices in what to plant, and how I balance stones and water features among the plantings is intrinsic to my aesthetics.  I may place all the textures of the plants, pots, stones in an order that is pleasing to my eye, but this is all balanced by the whim and laws of nature.
-- Donna Watson

Donna's collage work is a big inspiration to me.  I love her use of subdued color, texture, mark-making and layering.  They are quiet, beautiful and seem to point to something else, something that is both there and not there, inner and outer, microcosm and the macrocosm...all one.

As in any journey, stepping one foot ahead of the other, forging a path, I pored over Donna's pieces, contemplating the link for next week's post.  I thought about their structure and the use of space, formal and informal, playful and serene.  But that wasn't quite it, then I saw it in the surface and the layers themselves.  It was the way the layers reflected the history of their making, but also pointed to history that is stored in memory, in objects, in the marks we leave behind.  They were a kind of palimpsest, another long interest of mine...palimpsest...time for more investigation. 

Please visit A Walk Through The Universe next Monday and if you have thoughts related to palimpsest you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them.  In the meantime, there will be a few posts during the coming week.  Thanks so much to Donna Watson for making the beautiful work that is hers to make and sharing her thoughts about balance in her art and life. 

A Walk Through The Universe: Cairns

So, here we are with the first feature post in A Walk Through The Universe. The first subject in this journey has to be the cairn, which I first learned about several years ago as I read a wonderful book by Sheila Nickerson, Disappearance: A Map, A Meditation on Death & Loss In The High Altitudes.  Written from her home in Alaska, this book is a beautiful meditation on the lost and missing and on disappearance, both actual and as metaphor. In it, she mentions cairns, the rock piles made by explorers setting off into the unknown, in which they placed records of their journeys (or often the actual records were placed 10 feet truth north) along the way, including such things as projected routes, condition of the members of the party, previous routes traveled, discoveries, claims, etc.  They were leaving the trace for those that would come after, whether a search party, later expeditions or the unknown future generations.

The trace, leaving the record of our having passed...isn't that really what all of us are doing...I lived, I made this, I made a small difference in the world by having passed by here?  Such a simple gesture, piling up the rocks laying about, themselves a record of place and time. Sending a message to those who come after, forging the link in the unseen chain that binds us, one to another, generation after generation.

So, in the last few days, I began seeking more information about these small rock piles and my search brought forth some rich and delightful surprises all connected to a fellow by the name of Bill Dan of San Francisco.  He has been engaged for a number of years now in the work that has taken the utilitarian notion of the rock cairn to a stunning new level.  These pieces are all about beauty and balance and a kind of quiet defiance, as you'll see.

Bill provides a wealth of information and links regarding rock piles and cairns on his website here and on his delightful blog here. He graciously provided the following photos of his work, as well as links to his blog just for kids here and some video here.

I've barely had time to explore his sites, but I know there is such treasure awaiting me...these images take my breath away! They speak so powerfully to so very many things with such an economy of means.  Perhaps you're thinking the same thing I am...next week's Walk Through the Universe has to be about "balance"...