Develop a Method
Develop a methodListen to the raindrops
Every day go out and
watch the birds flyingWhite Book / Experiences with birds in the Marshland, 2022
Following these instructions, I developed a method of working that combined drawing, walking, and making. Watching the birds in the marsh every day, then recording these experiences in my journal, I then transcribed journal entries on canvas pages.
White book (pages on the studio wall, right)Third row:There is an owl flying over the mudflat past me as I sit quiet in the silver driftwood. 40 in an old oak tree, short-eared, documented. ~~Slivery's eyes are closed. She is listening to the wind and to one cricket singing loud under the log somewhere sheltered. The grasses are moving, the light shining, patterned. The snow geese fly over so fast. White bodies so quickly passing.~~The cormorants outside the window -- heads turned upward, floating downstream. They are after something. Salmon fry tossed high in the current around the bridge. They are after a time when there was more.
Fourth row:The sandpipers are magic light crafters, making the world, telling the crests of the waves how to be. ~~I am hearing the wings of the cliff swallow. Hundreds of these travelers over head. Small elegant bodies pointing delicate spreading talis. I am hearing the soft pat of wings -- numerous wings almost clapping, and I am hearing the wind and the trees. It is autumn and bleak. You are passing through, and you don't seem as joyful as in the summer.~~If only the air were always like this. All of you together make the sound of wind.
