Alaska steals your very soul...and I only experienced a slice of it.
I am back from vacation. I am painting, but not ready to post anything yet. The Last Frontier experience brought with it a great sense of humility and awe for the grandeur of nature that photos and brush strokes cannot capture. Since I returned the stakes for representational painting are higher and must be more respectful of the subject--nature bathed in light. For a little insight into my process, please see the poem shared in the "comments" section in the previous post. There will be another posting soon, but on Artist Time not on calendar time.
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Ah, reminiscent of one Anton Chekov:
ReplyDelete"I am quite incapable of describing anything so beautiful as the shores of the Amur; I am at a complete loss before them, and recognize my bankruptcy. How is one to describe them? ... Rocks, crags, forests, thousands of ducks, herons and all sorts of beaked gentry, and absolute wilderness. ... Truly I have seen such riches and had so much enjoyment that death would have no terrors now."
Me and Chekov, Chekov and me. I am honored to have his great name mentioned in my blog...and, yes, I am in complete agreement and recognize my bankruptcy for description of absolute wilderness. The purest form I have experienced is The Last Frontier. However, here is where we (Chekov and I) diverge. I need to live longer to produce The Epic Painting that has yet to be conceived and executed.
ReplyDeleteKeep those poems coming!
Ok, here's another one about quality of light:
ReplyDeleteThe Return
by Thomas R. Smith
Unto Him all things return. –The Koran
Walking on the park road
early morning, summer solstice,
we came to a place in the still-
shaded cool where, looking
up a grassy hillside,
we could see, through a gap
in the trees, the rising sun.
Burning clear with all
heat and strength befitting
the day of its longest dominion,
the sun, boiling from that
high nest of foliage,
lit a silver swath
of sparkling, dew-bent
grasses all the way down
the drenched slope.
So brilliant was that carpet
of light the sun unrolled
down the hill to our feet,
we stopped where we were
and sat awhile in pure wonder.
And I remembered an old
secret promise, deemed
unwise to speak, though
who could deny it,
seeing these folk, humble
yet adorned, nodding together
on their way back to the sun?
And soon enough we got up
again and wandered on
into whatever we had to do
on that day, though not unchanged,
having accompanied a little distance
on the morning road of their return
those illuminated pilgrims.
"The Return" by Thomas R. Smith, from The Foot of the Rainbow. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2010.