I spent some time at the studio today. On sunny days like this one, particularly in January, I find it hard to be indoors. Today, I exercised some Prudence, rolled up my sleeves, and worked.
I’ve been thinking a lot about truth- Truth- and where and how we confront it, where and how we accept it, where it hides… where we hide from it. Deceit through the media is no new thing (it has been part of the propaganda engine since the engine began to churn), but to be always confronted by it… perhaps that is a new thing. Polarity among peoples is also nothing new, but it is exhausting. We get so angry at one another, even when we do not know one another. It seems to me that the stakes are at a high point (as they are at times, in our cyclical histories), we have actual crises unfolding around us. We are so busy bickering we are in a quagmire of electric words. Nothing changes for the better, as a result of our virtual arguments. We all walk around triggered while the world burns. Or floods. My beautiful Venice, disappearing little by little.
I think such uplifting thoughts while I am at my easel!
Honestly, I think this is why I have been obsessed with landscapes lately. The land herself is an immutable truth. She can teach us about ourselves- we learn about who we are when faced with beauty (and with discomfort, and with disaster). She can help us remember things we’ve forgotten. Even in the city, I can count on several sunset posts whenever there’s a remarkable evening. I’ve seen people pull over in traffic to watch the moon rise.
And the land is a miracle. I think about that often. Nothing I did, or will ever do, will create the land around me. I can nurture it (though my houseplants would argue otherwise). I can protect or abuse it. But the land is not something I earned, or engendered. It is, simply, a gift. Or, perhaps: it is. Simply.
“Truth may be vital, but without love it is unbearable. Caritas in veritate.”
So much of what we listen to or read or talk about is shaded by politics. Somebody, somewhere, wants to manipulate the way we feel about something- generally by making us angry or afraid. In trying to express the land through my paintings, I want to offer something different. The land that I love so dearly arrests me; it forces me to stop, it waits behind my eyelids until I can go out and see it again. It is etched upon my soul. It is impossible for me to be political about it, or indifferent to it. I love it far too much, and I feel too keenly how precarious it is. Rather than posterize it, or use some virtual megaphone to incite fear or anger, I paint it. I paint it because I love it. I paint it to know it better. I paint it so that maybe, other people will love it too.
An old windmill keeps watch over the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park. It bears witness to the relationship people have with the land on which they live. Work in progress.
