Sunset last night: beguilingly calm.
Is it the full moon today? Inside, I’m just moving in so many directions at once. Feelings about this, feelings about that. And all these are part of making my art.
It’s not just the light that is disappearing at sunset, or, in the case of my art, appearing at dawn. It’s who I’m with, what’s happening… how I’m feeling. In the large piece that I hung in DC, I reference memories of my childhood early morning horseback rides with my father.
In the winter months, it would be pitch black darkness as we set out on the rides at 6 AM. In the course of the hour that we were riding, the light would begin to appear. Never two days the same, but dark moved towards light.
I recall that there was this sense, as the light began to dissipate the darkness, that the emotional closeness to my father would lighten as well. Horse back riding in the total darkness with just the sound of another horse – clip-clopping along the dirt road – made that other horse and rider emphatically present. I was with them. But only because of the sound. And then, as they became visible, the road and trees and landscape began to appear and the sound lost importance. Context. That person gradually, so subtly, became part of a larger whole.
So, also my feelings moved. The closeness at the start would seem to dissipate with the light. Just me with just him became me and him in this ever-widening setting. I would feel less attached. He would feel less central. And the landscape would become more and more vivid.
He was not all that mattered. We both were part of this larger whole. And I could feel all kinds of different feelings in this larger space. All kinds of different feelings.
Years later, I create a piece of art. I use color. I am remembering the light and how the light changed during those early morning rides.
Just color. Just the landscape. With these two elements, did I also include my feelings? And will the viewer pick up those feelings or find his/her own?
That landscape. Perhaps so calm. Perhaps beguiling.