Source of the Spiral, Part 2

Just before traveling to Denmark we drove though Sweden. While there we visited the rock carvings in Tanum. I can't find the proof to back up my memory but somewhere I read that the many cup indentations were likely fertility symbols. Not necessarily in a human reproduction sense, although not excluding that, but in the broader sense of prosperity for the community.


A particularly beautiful section of petroglyphs shiny with the rain that fell during our whole visit.


Here a figure with a large hand holds many cups. These cup symbols were liberally scattered amongst the carvings.

Source of the Spiral, Part 1

I was asked about the source of my spiral works. The answer to that question is multifaceted. One of the main things I look for in choosing forms is a kind of universality. I want to work with forms that are meaningful but that are meaningful to different people in different ways. So I look for forms that are powerful but open. One of my earliest sources of inspiration for what became the spirals was found in Møn, Denmark. The island is populated with ancient burial mounds. These include large boulders and you can actually go inside some of them. I'm not positive if the rock below is part of a burial mound but it is covered in carved out "cup" divots. These divots are fertility symbols.


Climbing up to the rocks.


A view of the fields.


Close-up of the rock and divots.

Wisteria Time

I took a walk down the road to photograph the wild wisteria. It's a great spot because the bridge allows you to be midway up the tall tree the wisteria vine has rapped itself around. One large tree that previously supported wisteria fell in the snows this winter. If I had a kayak it would be fantastic to paddle along the water and see the fallen tree with it's beautiful blooms of wisteria.

My work in Drawing Magazine Spring 2010

The following are a few pages from the article that includes my work. This spring issue of Drawing Magazine should hit the news stands soon. My work is on the final pages of the article. Check out the magazine to read the whole article by Ken Procter.

Paulownia Trees

I got a special request to identify these trees from a previous post. Thanks to Ask-A-Gardener Service at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society I have discovered that these trees are Paulowina Trees. I admire their spring blooms as well as their ability to grow almost anywhere. Below are photos of a Paulowina tree growing out of the side of a building.





These are images from my original post about the trees.

WTF

Since I've been having problems loading photos onto the blog I decided to update it. The idea is that updating will somehow solve my weird photo issue. In the mean time I had some fun choosing colors. A little something different for now anyway. I doubt it will last long. (Because it's ugly!!! But maybe a little ugly is just what I need right now)



ARGH! This is some what I see when I load a photo:

onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ulh6or-JRqjbEbTnXEFOGzmmmtmC-XmFpnTpclooRZztzgsr5VQ84ssgrkOjk_LoVHJP-RjH8mY3paJgrP6uzbUMfoP_1NMPjSvFtdmtiFeFhR9sNLtTc2N4gJf8E4XHw8XMR-h6jBQ/

It's so much less fun in hypertext!!!!! Anyway this photo is from the studio last week. Just the beginning of a large spiral based work I'll be making for the next month or so.

Home

Dirt

"image of dirt"

Working in my community garden plot today made me think of my blog. I'm missing a lot of last years enthusiasm because of the weeds. I think I was too ashamed to post a photo of my garden at the end of last summer.

"image of garden submerged by some crazy vine weed"

But as you can see here (in your minds eye) it wasn't pretty. So I waited until the day after the last possible moment to go dig some dirt. Yesterday was the 'must plant by date.' I don't feel so terrible ignoring it since it's too early for most of what I want to plant. But I went over and spent an hour making a row. I've altered my expectations. Last year I actually laid out a pretty design. This year I dug a row and put down kale, spinach, two kinds of lettuce and radish. And my only objective is to protect the row. I must defend the row from the diabolical weeds. This will be even more difficult because I didn't actually remove all the weeds from my little trenched off row. I just buried them.

Spontaneous Repetition

For reasons that are completely unknown to me Blogger is now showing my images as a gazillion letters and numbers in Edit mode. This is making it very difficult to do anything with the images. Perhaps I need to load smaller ones or upgrade something or another. At any rate I was going to load images from both shows in this post but the whole thing is taking too long. So for now I'll just leave you with these tidbits from our group show "Spontaneous Repetition."

Henry Bermudez

I should have posted this earlier. I'm not taking my blogging responsibilities very seriously these days. This is a great piece by Henry Bermudez from his show at the Painted Bride last month.