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Perhaps it is sublimated voluptuousness, and that may not be visible to everyone. —Henri Matisse
“Little places” — a village near Las Huertas spring. Not landscape, but ecological pleasure. Distinctly rock garden tone dance. Not realism, but a mutually interactive, interdependent plant jazz. An array of contrasts, tension & release, chordal asymmetries, arabesque entwined with intricate surface toward musical brightness. Botanical sprawl mixed out of calligraphic gestures, cobbled shapes & riffs of floral articulation. Necessary structure improvised from counterpoint & flux — what’s apparent in branching & chaotic growth. Instead of abstract, what arises is pattern & play. Rise & fall of seedheads, lines of yarrow stalks in front of sourcherry shrubs against the afternoon sky or wet dirt. Color wheel of gourd, chamomile, globe mallow, elm bark, corn husk, tulip & iris, wisteria, peach blossom, rotten fruit. An alchemy of baffling results. Square inch by square inch, bare paper, swipe, scratch, stain, overlays, drips & odd awkward incidentals, fat brush or stick, whole gamut built into long threads of concern, plus raking leaves, turning compost, even a begrudging admiration for weeds. Ooze becomes solid, materials thrive. Observer’s consciousness & reverence of common essence as a given. How to let it happen, finesse without glib acceptance. To love the effort. To trust that what you do is what you are supposed to be doing. Marks accumulate into lyrical, idiosyncratic congruency. |