Land Alive– In Continuum at Principle Gallery, June 14
Watch for the high tides of yourself and flow up with them; when the inevitable low tides come, either rest or meditate. You cannot escape rhythm. You transcend it by working with it.
–Elsa Barker, Letters From a Living Dead Man (1914)
I was looking for some bit of writing to open this post when I came across this passage from Elsa Barker. I liked what it was saying because I saw this painting, Land Alive, as being about the rhythm of a landscape. The land around us seems static but it is always changing in small ways, imperceptible to the casual glance. These changes mold the earth and leave a visible record that shows the rhythm of its evolution. And when you see that, the static scene takes on a sense of movement and life.
This was first brought to my attention when an elementary school teacher in telling us about the indigenous tribes of our area had viewed the landscape as being alive and how they identified certain landmarks such as hills and valleys by their human attributes. This changed the way I looked at landscapes and from then on, I looked at the curve of a distant hilltop as the curve in a human back and the gentle rhythm and roll of fields as the surface of the human body with all its curves and rolls.
The landscape became a living, breathing entity.
And that’s what I see in this new painting, Land Alive. It is a 12″ by 36″ canvas that is included in Continuum: The Red Tree at 25 which opens June 14 at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA. It has a rhythm and organic quality that gives it that sense of being alive for me.
There is a sense of rightness in it, another quality that I look for but can never fully explain. It’s either there or it’s not. I think is present here.
As for the passage from Elsa Barker, though I was intrigued by her words, I had never heard of her. I always like to know a little about the writings I cite here just so I know we’re on the same page, as far as meaning and intent. I can’t say Elsa (who lived from 1869 until 1954) and I (still living) are on the same page but the books she wrote are kind of weirdly interesting.
The book the passage above is from her 1913 book, Letters From a Living Dead Man. It was written via automatic writing which is basically dictation taken from a dead spirit that comes through a living person. I can’t say I put a lot of credence in this but I am not in any position to debunk her claim. Who is? There was an author, Jane Roberts, who lived here in Elmira who gained quite a lot of fame from her books in which she channeled a spirit being called Seth. I wasn’t aware until years later that the house on Water Street I went by thousands of times had once hosted lively conversations with the dead in the early 1960’s.
Neither Elsa Barker, Jane Roberts nor their methods or experiences have anything to do with this painting. But Elsa’s words (or was it the person she was channeling?) on living in the rhythm of the world feel right.
And that’s good enough for me this morning.
Redtree Times 