A Walk In The Universe: Place...Part 1

It's Monday and we're back on the Walk in the Universe (not that any of us have actually left our walks through the universe in the intervening days), but I find that I'm meandering at a slower pace.  There's a lot to think about and to digest in these topics we've looked at each week...they all have endless possibilities.  At first I thought I might just make A Walk Through The Universe a monthly feature, rather than weekly, but now it occurs to me that we'll just look at the same topic for the whole month over each of the Mondays during that month.  I won't feel like I'm on a trek with a deadline and we can explore a topic from various angles and take the time that will allow for more input from readers that might want to participate.  So, having said that, let's say we'll continue to look at "place" through the month of October and then see what the link seems to be...where will the path take us next!


Place...so nebulous and yet so specific...temporal...spatial...as Gabriella Mirollo (Two Tigers Creations) said in her comment last week, almost anything can be seen in terms of place...very true. Somehow, for me, my experience of place is so often tied up with memory and seen through it's half-open window. There are lots of ways to look at this subject and another week, I'll share a bit about my own experience of place, having moved to the midwest five years ago from Florida.  There will still be time in the month to see where else we go with the topic of "place". 


Part of what I like to share in this feature is the work of artists who are dealing with the topic of the week in some way through the creative process.  This week, I'm happy to bring you the work of a very dear friend from Florida, Peter Brown.  I've known Peter for decades and have watched his work evolve over time...always beautiful and always of a time and place.


Peter's work, as you'll see, beautifully juxtaposes pattern with imagery, in ways that for me, conjure a half-remembered time and take me to a place of deep longing, always for something unnameable. I've selected just three pieces from his blog, but many more wonderful works can be seen here. Here's what Peter has to say about his most recent work:

"My current work combines elements of painting and printmaking (mostly simple stencils). They are composed of multiple images, both representational and decorative, joined together in an attempt to give various symbolic visual and psychological perspectives to the larger narrative. The paintings are autobiographical and are all inspired by specific places. It is actually the description of the sense of place that is the subject of the work. I think of them as entries in a visual journal. The references are mostly from my own experience, but some of them are stories that I surmised/invented from family photographs taken during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries." 

-- Peter W. Brown

The Erosion of Sentimentality, acrylic on wood panel, 9x12", 2009

Full Moon, Long Sands, acrylic on 7 wood panels, 12x19", 2009

Countless Stitches, acrylic on canvas, 24x24", 2010 

Well, here I am a day after the original post (Monday, October 11, 2010), having to add the disappearing images back to the blog, yet again.  Each time I go through this process, the very paragraph I type here also disappears....so this blog post is now on it's third ending, alas each one slightly different in wording.  This time, I'll hold my breath that everything holds, as I tried a different process to get the images loaded. Bizarre!!! 

I really encourage you to investigate Peter's work further by visiting his blog Peter Brown Paintings...many more beautiful paintings, as well as photocollages to take your breath away!

I'll wrap this post up by saying that I'd love to hear from you with comments, suggestions or your own stories and experiences of place that you might want to share.  We still have at least a couple of Mondays left in the month, so your input can help enliven the conversation on this topic that is, all at once, anywhere and everywhere...place!