This is the third collage I made in the pathways and portals series. It an encaustic mixed media panel, 8×6 inches. I’m still not sure what I will be doing with all these panels. But I enjoy making them and revisiting my photos. Below is an excerpt from Linda Hogan’s book, Dwellings. I love the whole essay, but this is just a taste. If you don’t have the book, I recommend it. If you want to read a bit more of this, here is a link.
Sometimes I hear it talking. The light of the sunflower was one language, but there are others more audible. Once, in the redwood forest, I heard a beat, something like a drum or heart coming from. the ground and trees and wind. That underground current stirred a kind of knowing inside me, a kinship and longing, a dream barely remembered that disappeared back to the body. Another time, there was the booming voice of an ocean storm thundering from far out at sea, telling about what lived in the distance, about the rough water that would arrive, wave after wave revealing the disturbance at center…
…Whichever road I follow, I walk in the land of many gods, and they love and eat one another. Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands. – Linda Hogan
When I am out in nature, I do pay attention in a different way. Well first, one’s senses do come awake when you’re out on the trail out of necessity. But is it because my inspiration for my artwork comes directly from nature that I pay attention in a different way? I have been on walks with people who hurry by a colony of moss as if they are all just a clump of green at the bast of a tree. Whereas I see different shades of green and years of life and growth and how diverse it is and then my mind wanders to when I was young and thought that magical creatures would gather moss for clothing and bedding. Inevitably though I get behind and then have to hurry and catch up. But before that, I snap a photo to revisit later in my studio.
There are different ways of walking through the world. And different ways of paying attention. They are all valid. I’m happy that I get to notice what I notice.