Lichens, Moss, Lava

I know I've been a bit scarce around here, and the reason is that I've been busy for the past couple of months on a new body of work (both writing and art) about place and identity, inspired in part by Iceland. Where that project will end up is not clear, but I'm steadily working on it and will, from time to time, share some bits here. Meanwhile, regular blogging will continue!

Here is the latest piece. I'm putting it aside for now but plan to make some changes on the right-hand central side. These charcoal drawings are fairly large, about 30" x 22", and they look quite different in person; reducing them changes the feeling and impact a lot -- the actual drawing is approximately lifesize. Originally I thought I'd be doing drawings as preparations for prints, but I like these on their own, too, and the process of working on them, in silence and solitude, gives rise to thoughts and insights that I don't think would happen without going through the practice of drawing.

Lichens, Moss, Lava. Charcoal on acrylic-prepared paper. 30 x 22". 12/08/2011. Click for larger view

If you'd like to see a slideshow of the drawing as it progressed, here's a link on Flickr.

And here's something I wrote, during the drawing process:

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I’ve been working on a new charcoal drawing. Lichens, moss, lava. And a succulent plant something like sedum, with stiff pod-like leaves tightly clustered around flexible stalks. The drawing is large, like the first one, but this time I’m working on a painted ground of loosely applied, thin acrylic, toned with Hooker’s green, Naples yellow, and a bit of quinachridone red to a slightly greenish cream.

It’s the same problem I’ve returned to again and again in art: the representation of multiple, complex botanical forms. Here they are scrambling over yet another complicated shape — the deeply pitted lava. The advantage of working in black and white is that the forms take precedence, which is what I want. The disadvantage is the sheer complexity of the scene, but without the differentiation nature gives through color. In real life, the sedum is a brilliant viridian against the steely grey rocks, while the late-season moss encompasses every shade from olive-green to white. Color aids our eyes and brain: this is plant, this is rock, this is lichen – the latter of which appears, not entirely inaccurately, to be a life-form somewhat in-between the two.

Since my childhood I’ve been fascinated by the beauty of small, intricate groups of cohabiting plants one sometimes comes upon in the wild, created around a tree trunk, a fallen log, or an outcrop of rock not by any hand but nature’s. I tried, back then, to make my own, bringing child-size mosses, lichens, small wildflowers and seedling evergreens to the deep hollows formed between the roots of the beech trees on the side of our yard. I tended these miniature secret gardens year after year, populating them at times with a small doll or two and enjoying the unplanned visits by beetles and other insects, but never quite believing in elves or fairies. When, long afterward, as an adult wandering in the woods, I would come upon a verdant growth of moss covering a rounded tree stump like a velvet bustier, delicately adorned by clusters of tiny spores waving on thin stalks,  the darker leaves of wintergreen, and, perhaps, the tiny crimson hats of British-soldier lichen, I would be suddenly reminded of those childhood gardens and at the same time inspired by a silent, awestruck wonder at such perfection, wrought so effortlessly by nature and imitated with such painstaking care not only by imaginative children but by master gardeners. For it’s not only the grand scenes — the fiord and river, the mountain peaks, the endless waves approaching from a distant horizon — that bring me to that sense of wonder and stillness, but also the microcosm, the world at our feet.

I thought of that while drawing today, this sense of zooming out and zooming in. The lichens lay pure and white against the rocks, the largest barely bigger than two hands, a blankness in the center of much greater visual complexity. But such is a glacier, too: a strange expanse of whiteness that seems, in its very silence, to call out to the stillness within us and find an echo.

Comments

[Marja-Leena]

Beth, this is beautiful! Both drawing and your words. I wish I could see your drawing in real life, for you are right, that compressed on the screen the work loses something that the viewer does not see is missing. I love how you also see and describe vivdly the tiny world at our feet and compare it to that larger world, the lichen vs the glacier.

[Beth]

Thank you so much, Marja-Leena. I admit to a certain amount of nervousness about posting this work here - do you ever feel that way? What we see and feel in our studios is so different, including some feelings of self-protectiveness and protectiveness toward the work, too. But I've come to believe that having the courage to share, to put it out there, is so much better than being shy about it. Exhibiting our work digitally is also very different from a real-life exhibition, but how wonderful it is to be able to share it with a wider audience, some of whom (like you and I!) have come to each other as friends. There's a sense of solidarity with other writers and artists now, when I'm working, that feels very supportive even if it's not overtly expressed.

[Vivian]

I am delighted to read this. The matter you touch on is just as various, in scale & era & 'genus', as the landscapes you describe. Found myself wondering whether you ever made terrariums...

[Marja-Leena]

Yes, Beth, I know about that nervousness, especially in showing unfinished work. I felt very uncomfortable and rather exposed in the early days of blogging but found a very supportive network online, including you!, that has given me great courage and support. I'm now so hooked that I could not imagine stopping. And that keeps me going, even if just to post photos, instead of stopping working during those quieter spells that we all go through, yet is important in subconsciously developing further work.

Looking forward to more on this, Beth!

[Beth]

Dear Vivian, of course I made terrariums! I used to be a fall ritual for my mother and me.

[Jan]

I LOVE it, Beth. I'm a big fan of lichens and moss (not to mention Iceland). This is an amazing drawing, one of my favorites. I especially liked watching the picture grow and evolve.

[Jean]

I love this - so beautiful and intricate, and the thought of the inspiration you took home with you from Iceland is a very happy, heartening one.

[Deb]

Gorgeous ideas, even in compression. I do wish I could see them IRL, but am enormously satisfied with what I have before me. Quite love the progression at the Flickr site.

You're a woman after my own heart with the small detailed worlds, rock & lichen/moss/sedum. <3

[Dick]

It's a beautiful picture, Beth.

[Bill]

Wow..

[Uma]

This is beautiful Beth, your drawing and writing!

[Leslee]

Wow, that is gorgeous.

[Natalie]

Beth, I loved watching the slideshow of this and your rocks drawing. Witnessing the progress of a work is deeply satisfying - it's brave and generous of you to share this process.

I hesitate to post work-in-progress and still can't make up my mind as to whether, for me, it's helpful or not. At the moment I'm leaning on the side of not. Mainly because I change my mind as I work and often see that something I thought would be the right direction isn't. So if I get positive comments about, say, Stage 3, it would make me reluctant to give it up, and vice versa. But the creative process is such a personal thing, I don't believe one size fits all.

Speaking of size: I wish I could see your actual drawing, full size and close up!

[Beth]

Thank you all!