“The waves of the sea help me get back to me.”
— Jill Davis, Writer
Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.”
— Robert Henri, Artist
It’s a beautiful day!! I longed to see the sea… I took myself off to Southwold… strolling along the shore in the early morning sun renewed my sense of peace and calm… cares disappeared… it felt like the first day of spring, the warm sun ,the twinkling sea, the salty air, the sound of gentle waves..like balm… back in synch with nature’s rhythms… which evokes a sense of equilibrium, harmony and wholeness…as I leave the waves seem to say “come back soon dont leave it so long next time!”
“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke. Poet
“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”
— Loren Eiseley, Writer
All Quotes from….
http://www.seasky.org/quotes/sea-quotes-seashore.html.
Today continuing to gather ideas and exploring observations and perspectives on the near shoreline
Georgia O’keeffe, has been an artist who has inspired me in the past and has now re-emerged within this present project. that deals with observations of ‘distant’ horizons, sea meeting sky and the ‘near’ shoreline. Aspects of O’keeffes work referenced here (see images) focus on how she draws our attention to details of flowers..she adopts a ‘magnified perspective,’ which I also intend to adopt when focusing on observations of the near shoreline.
O’Keeffes commented, “A flower is relatively small… everyone has many associations with a flower ..it is so small …nobody sees a flower really …we haven’t time… and to see takes time…[..] I will paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look.”(Britta Benke,1994,pp21-43,Benedickt Taschen Verlag GmbH Hohenzollernring 53,D 50672 Koln.)
Ansel Adams said of O’keeffe’s work “No one can look at a painting without being deeply affected.”
This is something I hope to achieve within my work connecting back to looking, observing and taking time to see what the shoreline holds, to ‘stand and stare,’taking in nature from a magnified perspective.
Looking back into a previous project I have now focused on ideas for lino cuts and paintings of sea weed (see images). Using primary source photos I have enlarged parts of seaweed using pencil and watercolour experiments that magnify and focus our attention on the forms, line, texture, and colours within chosen images. Over the next couple of weeks I intend to explore these areas within my work.
Experimenting today using acrylic paints-exploring colour within sea-sky image concerning aspects of the horizon whilst at the same time being aware of the important role of colour within a composition and the use of complimentary colours…
colbalt blue
Ultra marine blue
Red oxide
transparent yellow
Vermilion (orange)
Turquoise
were the colours explored today.
As can be seen from my experiments I am still in the early stages and process of finding/interrogating colours that are compatible…. today’s larger work is heavily laden with blue and lost my original intent towards creating a calming effect.
RESEARCHING online.
I came across artist Gwyneth Scally and an interesting article on her by Gabriel Del Valle below, I found this inspiring as I have been considering my own approach in possibly using ideas for a sculpture or an installation work in the project that would provoke and communicate the need to connect with nature and what our response should be as part of a consumer technological society that is increasingly dissconnected from the natural world.
Scally said her work is deeply rooted in the fight between humanity and nature. More specifically, she spoke about the fight that we, as a culture, engage in within ourselves of connecting with nature while having no idea what nature truly is in today’s day and age.
, we have lost the meaning of what it is to genuinely experience nature.
“The need to recreate nature is what my art is about,” Scally said.
Her works show a consistent mixture of nature or wildness and modern structures or constructs. Her art is eminently visual and thought provoking.
Her work is advocating for reconnecting to the natural world while making sure the future generations have one to reconnect to.
http://thepenn.org/2014/03/07/art-connects-with-nature-in-new-exhibit/
