I cover nature.
Daily drawings are digital finger painting atop photos, including collage-symbols made from other moments in time. These personal symbols are stored as stickers in my phone. I use them, often, like a 1o year old with a Tarot deck.
These pieces are often created from my bed, in the dark. I am practicing, so even when I’m old, I can still make art and share symbols for others to see.
My “thesis” is developing. I have a lifetime to clarify.
Sometimes I cover human-made things. I follow lens flare, because that’s a lens on a lens that shows light at play.
And light at play is beautiful.
Other things we’ve made: from cities to machines, lenses and fire-pits, power plants and prepared foods, all come from nature. Nature + Ideas. Every component has its start in a primary element. We collectively and individually alchemize.
I also cover this process: like a journalist who shows before and after a storm.
When I look, I see symbols in most places: dots and lines, shapes and patterns. I see compositions many moments: the edges of my field of vision make the frame.
Symbols that speak to me inside this edge tell me things I can only know in the moment. The symbols inform me of my place, my identity, and sometimes of they inform me about time, or ancestry.
The symbols I see tell me I am safe and in an okay, connected place, even when the art later appears “dark” or complicated. It is not easy to understand what we’ve collectively done.
We are not living in only sunshine and rainbows, but we can transmute dark to light, with care and insight.
And, to share these perceptions with you, I cover them practically. The covering is a protective act and like an arrow pointing at the thing too. Behind the veil of my art is as close a depiction to a real thing as I can give you.
I also rarely tell viewers where the place actually is – will you be kind and loving there? Will you respect how nature talks to us, and leave no trace?
Minimal impact comes to nature via digital art, I hope. I can sketch every day and only use a touch of electricity, yet thousands of you can see the work, experience process, and maybe read symbols in sticks and stones too.
Public art in digital realm: that’s a conception, and my excuse.
My work is also journalism: covering a thing as it is.
Here is the original | Here is personal “take.”
I do not reveal exactly where I go, most of the time, because I don’t want other people going there too, unless the place is already an “attraction,” in which case, I’ll co-promote it with a location tag1.
Promotion is still worthy, but my art is private, revealed as such with full regalia atop it’s nakedness. You have to look to find the untouched below.
If you don’t care to look and tread carefully, you also don’t deserve to see what’s in this world. That’s a judgement on you the viewer. I can’t remove that from the work, so it remains.
I cover nature because I love it, and it loves me. I need birds chirping, skies blue & skies crying, lying in the grass, and leaves decaying. I need water flowing, aromas, creatures, sticks, stones, smiles and my relationships with trees.
Some people photograph selfies, or friends, or exclusive places with image-makers and post these to community. Jealousy makers, or maybe loving dispatches? Hard to say intention. They are curated, just like my art is. Social media as a medium carries this kind of dichotomy too.
Pieces from this week: Blues
- My paid vocation has been such: promotion to help gather people together for good things. ↩︎
Lens Flare | Marketing | Nature | Alchemy | Creative Process | Art | Conception