I’ve been doing less drawing and more collages over the past two weeks. I’m almost done with the tree drawing, but I’m waiting to be able to meet with my teacher, who has some advice on it but who has been out working on a mural every morning for the past few weeks. I’m glad for the impetus to spend more time on these abstract pieces, because their topic is important to me: the tensions and balance between continuity and change.

The one I’m working on now has a long way to go, but here are two from earlier this spring on the same theme (weak quality–the best I can do with my little camera). I looked up skin in the encyclopedia for the second one and loved what I found: “The basic function of our skin is to protect the organism from infection and the introduction of foreign materials, yet at the same time, it is an organ of respiration, secretion, the regulation of body temperature, sensation, and excretion.” In other words, our skin has the responsibility to be a barrier–quite an incredible one, flexible and impermeable to water–and also to allow exactly the right things out and in. It’s a model to emulate in the life of the soul, trying to maintain equilibrium while being open to the new and releasing the no-longer-necessary (which, as in the bodily metaphor, can quickly become toxic).

image 169

Continuity and change, #1

image 170

detail

image 171

Continuity and change, #2

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