Cervante’s Don Quixote opened a wide door on my imagination, and I’m forever grateful for having discovered this book. I spent five years mining material from the “knight with the woeful countenance” and his multitudinous adventures. Cervantes lead to Pablo Neruda, and his poem El Partenon. Four hundred years separates these artists, but both believed in the indomitable human spirit and the power of art and beauty, especially in time of doubt and crises.
Travel has been very influential in my work. The interaction between my reading of the text and my travels through Spain, South America and Japan appear in the images. How travel memories surface over time reveals a lot; landscapes and settings of my own desires refine the experiences recorded in the photo album, as I find my footing in these author’s timeless landscape of imaginings.
Neruda’s Horse
When I visited Chile, seeing Neruda’s three homes was a prime goal. The landscape and climate is similar to the Pacific Northwest, and Neruda’s own fascination with the sea and boats was a strong lure for me. I saw his homes (Isla Negra, Valparaiso and Santiago) before I read his poetry. His homes struck me as poems made visible. Objects dear and common, sentimental, political from all over the world filled his interiors. Cultures brush shoulders and inform one another on his walls; they never clash. The world becomes smaller, intimate.
The most intriguing object in his collection is the life sized, stuffed horse. Neruda passed this taxidermic wonder daily, as a child on his way to school; later in life he purchased it and ensconced it in modest glory in his home on Isla Negra. Here too, he looks to the ideal of childlike wonder to guide and inform. Don Quixote would be right at home on this horse and I’d like to think I’ve gone along for the ride too.
Bees and Folding Proteins
El Partenon is a lengthy poem, richly ornamented. Neruda recounts the inspired beginning of the Parthenon in ancient times, and sad decline throughout the modern era. It suffers neglect and purposeful destruction, but ultimately emerges to take its rightful place in our heart through the intuitive and structural support rendered by nature’s architect and messenger, the bee. My interest in bees was compounded by an image of a particular folding protein, incorporated into our genetic code, whose appearance resembles an active hive. Bee behavior is a model of programmed efficiency, while the beehive combines geometry and repeating sub-units to achieve its beauty and function. Finally, “The Parthenon's” message of rebirth out of decay echoes the constant breaking down and building up cycles common to life, including the seemingly miraculous but mathematically based genesis of the folding protein.
More mysterious is our emotional response to works of art like a poem or beautiful painting. How do the carefully crafted words of Neruda convey his humanism, and evoke complex feelings in us like a sense of connectedness? How do layers of paint on a two dimensional canvas arouse wonder or reverence?
Addendum
Honey bees (genus apis mellifer) are now in the throes of a dire reversal of fortune of their own, due to the disease “Colony Collapse Disorder.” Its root causes are undetermined, but scientists suspect an array of contributing factors. Their plight is not unlike that of the Parthenon. Neruda credits the bee’s genetic dedication to structure and order with sustaining the ideals of the Parthenon during its decline. Like beehives, folding proteins in nature are gene driven repeating structures which help sustain life; the odd, ribbon like shapes in the “Beeline” scrolls are my interpretation of them.
Technical Notes:
I’ve been studying Siennese painters of the 14- early 15th centuries , especially their approach to coloration and imagery. The imagery, while portraying common ecclesiastical themes, also ventured into the secular realm with the same quiet intensity. The paintings are very dreamlike, and use figures in a metaphorical way that brings the narrative along, without sacrificing the overall mysterious quality of their painting.
The scale of the work is small to moderate with the largest under 3 feet in any direction, and the palette is warm and rich . These are oil paintings on wood panels prepared with hot rabbit skin gesso. This gesso is very absorbent and minimizes the boundaries between support, ground, and paint. It creates a plaster - like landscape that becomes the “bone” upon which the painting is built. The painting is built up, layer upon layer, with false or misleading starts buried under a new layer; the resulting surface is very tactile. This concealing and revealing process adds depth and mystery, and the final surface emerges slowly like a memory.
Selected Individual Works:
ROBBER BEE, oil on wood panel , 18 x 24
Neruda recounts the Parthenon’s vissicitudes of fortune and ultimate rescue, through the intuitive and structural support rendered by natures’ architect and messenger, the bee. This portrait of a bee, painted in predominately umbrian and burnt sienna tones, is a romantic rendering, and is my homage to this delicate creature, upon which we are so dependent for our own welfare.
THE GLOWING MOON, oil on wood panel, 22 x 25
This is a night scene, and a hauntingly tender one, between a couple united in their destiny and love for one another. Fortune is smiling, the bride and groom are rooted in the moment, an eternity of thought and emotion given voice. One suitcase lies between them, suggesting a long and shared journey.
TO BEGIN TO BE, oil on wood panel, 24 x 24
Infants represent what is most hopeful of humanity. They are far from helpless, and have a powerful presence. He is holding a bee net on his lap, with one captured bee safely inside. The infant is innocence in its truest sense, and derives power from it.