Geology
The Rhode Island coast is one of the geographical regions that has a history of original inspiration and influence in the evolution of my artistic practice as a multi-media visual artist. The other three original regions of “Place as Muse”, are the Berkshire Hills of Connecticut and Massachusetts, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin coast of Lake Michigan and New York City, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. My newest work is shaped by a current live/work re-connection during the past decade, of an unexpected reunion with both the Berkshire Hills land and the seacoast of Rhode Island. Following the death of my mentor, then friend and colleague, Herta Payson, I found myself visiting and getting to know her son, and then re-visiting her home, library and the seacoast she and I both loved, in Northeast Connecticut and Rhode Island. We both had a shared history of intimate connection with, and reverence for, that southern New England Seacoast. We both shared a rich lived experience of many years spent in her shores, rhythms and tides. While furthering my education in that region and researching new professional opportunities in my field and vocation, I began exploring new areas for my practice of walking meditation and chi running along, the Rhode island shore. One day this winter, I came upon an area of land, sea and sky, that introduced me to the site and source of inspiration, elemental material and interdisciplinary subject matter, that has begun to guide and shape my artistic practice, and which presently informs my current body of work.
Rocks, stones, boulders, geological beds and the sands of rivers, lakes and shorelines, have always called to my awareness. The geological elements of a place, have been subjects of contemplation for me as much as trees, wild life, air currents, moving waters, and the ever changing light and shadows flowing through and upon the forms and spaces, as I move within and as a part of, any natural environment. I been actively walking, hiking, running and meditating along trails and shorelines, since a very young age. The natural elements of the environment receive my attention as often as do my inner states of contemplation and embodied awareness of breath and the rhythms of personal biology.
As I revisited this area, my love for, and interest in, the subjects of the ocean, open sky, trees, birds and sounds of the sea, received my full attention. A powerful, more focused relationship with the area’s geology began to receive my fullest attention. An inner attraction, magnetism, intellectual, intuitive and spiritual pull, has been developing, toward aspects of the ground, around and beneath me. The composition and rich variety of hue, density and texture, of the coastal geology, is becoming a guiding muse in this Place.
