It’s all about full immersion...for now
I’ve been intentionally painting for over a year now and though I don't necessarily want to inject my work with some higher meaning, I have started to see a theme emerge -- at least in this phase.
That theme seems to be a feeling of full immersion. I’m talking about that feeling of being completely connected to your instinct and the natural world. Some find it in a zen moment walking quietly along a shoreline, some find it in the peak of concentration during athletic pursuit, and some might find it with repetitive motion of something like….say….fly fishing (you see where I’m going here). Whenever that feeling of immersion is found it tends to come when we are so utterly focused on our task at hand that the world outside our nugget of concentration blurs.
Personally, I’ve felt it climbing mountains, walking through the woods, riding my mountain bike, and planting a garden. I also found a dose of immersion when I started learning to fly fish; fully concentrated on dialing in the cast, fully surrounded by moving water, fully focused on the goal of luring a fish. This is also around the same time I decided to start painting deliberately and consistently, putting my work out into the world. Though fly fishing wasn't my first introduction to fishing -- I grew up trolling for salmon in the Puget Sound -- there was something very different about the process that I wanted to try to capture. Hence my current body of work.
That moment of focus and connection seems to be a universal feeling that is hard to define and understand, something like that seems worth continuing to explore. You’ll continue to see fish, but I’ll probably start working with other activities that represent that state as well. I’m really inspired at the moment to continue figuring out powerful ways to depict all of this through selective detail, negative space, and unique compositions. I’ve started to tap into this with my current WIP - a big ol tail slap - so look for more thoughts on this painting soon.
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Thanks for reading this far, any thoughts are truly welcome!
