Subtleties and the Accumulation of Our Decay

For various reasons, I'm thinking about subtleties these days.  Life has been so busy and I've been frantically trying to create new work and get it posted to MissouriBendStudio, that I found I've veered a bit off course.  Am I perhaps making the work too quickly, without being true to the work, to myself, to revealing the essence of things, which only happens quiety and over time?  Part of the reason I make work that is small is that there is an intimacy in the act of making and in the viewing...small work requires a one-on-one experience, hand-held, at arm's length and it reveals subtleties that can't be seen across a large distance just at a glance.  Life is too rich, too layered and it can't be taken in without a certain slow unveiling.  In my own way, all my work is about this richness, the history of our lives unfolding, the vastness of experience in a moment, in an hour...in a life.  How can we talk about these things...visually or in language...I don't really know exactly, but it's what drive me...the longing that does not go away. And just now, a few moments ago, I read this short line from The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard and I don't think any context is really needed...it's all said right here: :"Why not memorize everything, just in case."

The piece here, Accumulation of Our Decay, was made about a year ago an is approximately 11x15", on handmade paper, and full of subtlety that is only revealed close at hand.  Layers of painting and drawing that resembles writing, as well as bits of ephemera in image in the form of cut bits of paper sewn into the floating clouds...well, this is the richness of our history, the accumulation of our decay.  I must slow down, pay attention.