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| have you…. ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media and rust on panel ~ 12 x 24 x 2 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
Have you…
Have you gazed?
Have you camped?
Have you galloped?
Have you roamed?
…Have you…?
Am thrilled to have this painting take up half a page (!) of The Tempo section in the The Taos News a couple of weeks ago when they ran that cool ’10 Questions’ article about my recent art exhibition with Joan Fullerton. [Click here to read the article]. Unfortunately the online version of the article doesn’t include the painting image, but it sure looks grand in the print version!
The Taos News article helps shed insight into this new painting series, as does my Artist Statement from the show:
Have You Gazed?
For years I have been painting in two distinct styles — “traditional” landscape painting in oil, and a much more abstract style in mixed media collage. It’s been my longtime dream to somehow merge the two styles into one; to create more than just another “pretty landscape’ and take the viewer deeper. But how go about it?
Then, a confluence of influences occurred:
• I began to read, write and study poetry.
• I rediscovered—after a quarter-century hiatus—my love of backpacking.
• The wondering of how I could go so long without engaging in an activity I was once so passionate about.
• The discovery of my 30-year old booklet of “Wilderness Quotes,” to which I used to turn for inspiration when conveying the “Wilderness Pledge” to Boy Scouts, back in my days of teaching backpacking and camping skills at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, NM.
• Finding among those pages, Robert Service’s epic poem, The Call of the Wild. Though poetry critics surely roll their eyes at Service’s doggerel lyricism, his poem inspired me in my youth, and passages of it still make my pulse quicken. The text and phrases in these paintings are from this poem.
• Reflections on the land, and people’s increasing disconnect with the natural world
• Reflections on pathways and journeys.
• Gratitude for rediscovery.
If passages of this painting look familiar to those of you who are on my postal mailing list you may recall this painting from my “save the date” card for the Taos show:
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| across the mesas ~ by dawn chandler ~ mixed media on panel ~ 12 x 24 x 2 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
Or this painting from hiking Taos’ Wheeler Peak:
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| descending wheeler peak, taos ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel ~ 12 x 24 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |