I came across a terrific video from travel cinematographer and time-lapse specialist Enrique Pacheco called Reflections From Uyuni. It is a film that has time-lapse views of Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats located in the Andean highlands of Bolivia. The flats cover an area over 4000 square miles in size ( much larger than Yellowstone, more than twice as large as the Grand Canyon and about 90 times larger than our Bonneville Salt Flats) at an altitude of over 11,000 feet, with only a few feet of variance over the entire area. Very flat indeed. With its crust of salt, it is obviously a great source of salt as well as lithium, of which it is estimated to hold well over 50% of the world’s reserve.
But all that said, for me, these strikingly beautiful images are filled with a sense of silence that I find so intriguing and often find myself trying to embed in my own work. The Big Quiet as I call it. Take a few moments to judge for yourself. Also, please check out Enrique Pacheco’s other films at his Vimeo pageor his website. Truly stunning work.
In this new painting, a 10″ by 30″ canvas that I am calling Rooted, the Red Tree steps aside and allows the Red Chair to take centerstage.
The title is an obvious reference to the Red Chair’s most frequent interpretation as a symbol of family and ancestry, with the dark tree that holding them looking in a way like a pedigree chart with branches coming off the main root and branching out. The path that disappears in the distance could be referring to the journey that the family tree took at an earlier time, perhaps emigrating from a distant land.
But for all its symbolism, I feel the strength of this piece is more from a visual fulfillment in the way the tree’s trunk and branches break up the picture plane into little islands of light, as though I am looking down on it from above and the tree transforms into a river with the branches becoming smaller streams feeding into it. Thus, the Red Chairs are not growing away from the earth but are flowing back toward it.
There are a lot of things happening in this modest piece. Even now, looking up at it as it rests on the fireplace here in the studio, I find myself taking in different aspects of it that send my mind in new directions. And I like the fact that it can be simply what it is or can move me into a completely different realm of thought.
Rooted will be part of my show, Native Voice, opening June 5 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA.
Keeping up the theme that was the subject of an earlier post this week, I decided that for this Sunday morning’s musical selection I would play a lovely version of Heroes from David Bowie. It’s an acoustic version (with Gail Ann Dorsey accompanying him on vocals and bass) from a 1996 performance at the Bridge School Benefit, an annual concert began by Neil Young to benefit the Bay Area school that helps kids with severe speech and physical impairments. In that context, the song takes on additional layers of meaning as you see the many parents in the audience with their children, many cradling them.
Heroism.
Looking for an image to illustrate this post, I did an image search by punching in the word hero. It was all superheroes and warriors which saddened me because I know that heroism is something far more than that. It’s about doing those things that need to be done, about taking responsibility in order to serve a purpose beyond your own needs. We think of it as a rare thing but it is evident every day in the actions of those people who give so much of themselves to others.
For me, an example of this came to me in a very personal way. When my mother was struggling in the last months of her battle with cancer, I visited her for last time. Her and my father had been together for about 46 years at that point, years which could be described as turbulent at best. For such a long married couple, they had an odd love/hate relationship which had them always on the edge of huge screaming battles that were fraught with violence. They were terrible things to see and even as a child I often wondered why they remained together. But they did and as she neared the end of her life, Dad became her cook, her maid, her nurse, and her driver to the many treatments that made up the last months of her life. Her everything.
When I made my last visit, I noticed a photo on her bedside table. It was photo of the two of them together from several years before, standing at some Florida site drenched in sun. On the cheap little frame, underneath my father was a word formed in simple block letters, those type of things that you rub on from a sheet.
It was the word Hero.
Now, at that point in my life I didn’t see my father in heroic terms. Far from it. No, he was and is a very flawed human being with many traits that are far from any definition of heroism. But in this case, he took on the form of a hero for my mother and in that moment, looking at that photo, for myself as well. I realized that the word was not about great accomplishment but rather about following that need to serve another.
So it can be for everyone, as the song says :
I, I will be king And you, you will be queen Though nothing will drive them away We can beat them, just for one day We can be heroes, just for one day
I finally came across the quote at the top from the late Arthur Ashe that seemed to best fit the thought .
Came across an interesting video from Smarter Every Day, a science based website from aerospace engineer Destin Sandlin that, in his words, attempts to find the unexpected. This video concerns a bicycle made with a gear that turns the wheel in the opposite direction. That sounds simple enough and I am sure most of you who have rode a bike think that you could master riding this bike fairly quickly. Just a little concentration and a push of the pedals and you would be off, maybe a little shakily at first but on your way.
Not so quick.
It turns out that there are so many factors at play in riding a bike that are hardwired into our brains once we learn how to ride one that dramatically altering any one of them makes riding a bike almost impossible, as you will see in this video. A very interesting example of the way our brain learns and adapts. Or not.
I’ve been a fan of the late mythologist Joseph Campbell for many, many years. In his many books on myth, including his classic The Hero With a Thousand Faces, as well as a great PBS series, The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers , Campbell documented myths from around the world but more importantly showed how intimately they related to our individual lives. Campbell showed us that we all had lives that very much followed the patterns that ran through the classic myths of all cultures.
In short, we are all, in our own way, heroes. We may not slay dragons or find great treasures, but we all at a point experience some form of the hero’s journey.
There’s a wonderful animated short film called What Makes a Hero? from TED Ed and educator Matthew Winkler that succinctly illustrates Campbell’s premise, including the eleven stages of the hero’s journey. It’s a delightful short that will hopefully help you to begin to see the mythic elements that make up your own life.
I came across a terrific video from travel cinematographer and time-lapse specialist Enrique Pacheco called Reflections From Uyuni. It is a film that has time-lapse views of Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats located in the Andean highlands of Bolivia. The flats cover an area over 4000 square miles in size ( much larger than Yellowstone, more than twice as large as the Grand Canyon and about 90 times larger than our Bonneville Salt Flats) at an altitude of over 11,000 feet, with only a few feet of variance over the entire area. Very flat indeed. With its crust of salt, it is obviously a great source of salt as well as lithium, of which it is estimated to hold well over 50% of the world’s reserve.
Redtree Times 