Perspective

These days, I try to look at my situation with a broader perspective. Sometimes it's easy to feel grateful for extra time with family, a slower pace of life, and the opportunity to do lots of creative work. Other days, well, it can take some effort to get up out of the chair.

Coyote, charcoal, acrylic, and oil paint on canvas, 40”x30”

Several years ago, frustrated with my work, I started making abstract paintings as a way to refresh and recalibrate. I used what I had - acrylic mediums, sand, house paints, pieces of broken mirror - to express movement, energy, and mood. Beginning with a white canvas, I would activate it any way I could. This was engaging at first, but soon enough I began to imagine putting imagery on top of the random marks. I drew flowers, intriuged with the decisive lines of their forms over the unplanned splashes and the tension between their delicacy and the chaotic and forceful motion beneath. Then, things began to happen that flowers fell short of communicating. I felt that animals were an ideal mix of emotive and wild, and could best express what I was trying to get at.
The array of displays at the Museum of Natural History is fascinating and dramatic, and it was of this I thought. I went to the museum and photographed stuffed creatures that seemed poised to flee.

Wolves, charcoal, acrylic, and oil paint on canvas, 30”x40”

As I drew and fleshed out the animals, I thought of the expeditions tasked with hunting them, the process by which they were brought to Manhattan, and how they were readied for display. I thought about what it meant that countless visitors stood one foot and a thin pane of glass away from magnificent beasts, rendered lifeless for that very purpose.

Buffalo, charcoal, acrylic, and oil paint on canvas, 40”x30”

I noticed that I had to add very little to the abstract underpainting to have it read as landcape. I worked as sparingly as possible, allowing the random marks to form parts of the animals as well, so that they became interwoven with the background. I preserved as much raw white canvas as I could, seeking contrast with the textured colors.

Rhinos, charcoal, acrylic, and oil paint on canvas, 30”x40”

Time passed, I finished the series and became interested in birds. Distance let me see something new in the work: these paintings say what I feel about our treatment of the planet and the animals we share it with. My sense of things as intertwined and disappearing emerged through my approach to creating the piece, even though I was not aware of it at the time.

This idea of following a path and only later seeing what the sum of my actions have led to feels analogous to the current situation. I'm starting to like reminding myself to stay in the moment, for by doing this fully, I'm likely to surprise myself later with what I was up to.
How about you? What bigger thing might you be up to while you are in the moment?