Where the Elements Meet

Small paintings inspired by mud, stone and mist using granulating watercolour mixes:

 

Air, Land and Water

Stony Space

Earth Heart Space

  

Space Vortex (Dust, Air, Mist)

A Universe in a Cedar Cone

 This August I spent a week on an arty retreat in the Herefordshire countryside with 30 Buddhists exploring William Blake and Buddhism.There was a cedar tree in the grounds and many cedar cones there for discovery. I was intrigued by the way the cone grew in a spiral with curling shape adding to curling shape.  It seemed to me as if these shapes had emerged from deep time and mirrored the unfolding of galaxies. I imagined the cones made of the dust of stars: star dust making patterns which held the deep structure of the universe. The cones held the memories of their mother tree in microcosm: holders of seeds of forms yet to appear, forms mirroring and repeating the ancient structures of life, connecting back to the primeval forests of the tree's ancestors. I marvelled at the memories of this ancient knowledge of how to unfold the essence of a cedar tree.  All in one, within, without, inside, outside. 

The first two images were painted on the retreat: a tiny watercolour and a piece made using local clay.

I took a cedar cone home and made some more paintings.

All taking inspiration from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"

To see a World in a grain of sand,

And a Heaven in a wild flower,

To hold Infinity in the palm of your had,

And Eternity in an hour.