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.