traditional landscape . . . .
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| the trail to crooked creek ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 12″ x 24″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
. . . reconsidered . . .
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| do i listen? ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media on panel ~ 12″ x 24″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
In the coming weeks you’ll be seeing more of these landscapes with passages of words.
Wordscapes.
Poemscapes?
Thoughtscapes…..
And the vertical lines. . .
What do they mean?
Your guess is as good as mine.
But for some reason I’m compelled to put them in there. It’s like an itch; the painting doesn’t feel finished until I’ve etched these long slender marks.
They’re a recurring compositional element in my work, haunting my paintings here and there for some twenty years.
In this new body of paintings, the vertical lines seem to sequester off or frame areas of the landscape portrayed.
Much like our memories.
Whole passages of our memory of a place fades under mental rust and dust. Our recollections narrow. Sharpness softens.
Or we forget altogether as our focus is diverted with the ping of devices.
What’s left?
some details:
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| do i listen? ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media on panel ~ 12″ x 24″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
Incidentally, just as in my first painting in this series, Baldy Mountain from Wilson Mesa ~ Have You Gazed, most of the words and phrases in this painting come from the Robert Service poem, The Call of Wild.
Also, this view of Crooked Creek was shared with me by way of my dear friend and Philmont legend Mariah Hughes, who spent a summer exploring these meadows and pathways as one of Philmont’s first women camp directors. As I learned this weekend, Mariah requested this photo of our friend, Jim MacGillivray. (Nice job, Jim!)
Today is Mariah’s birthday, so it only seems appropriate that I post these paintings today. Happy birthday, SS! 😉
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| the trail to crooked creek ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 12″ x 24″ ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |