As I went to paint from one of those reference photos today, it did not escape my notice that on the last morning of camp what caught my eye was a network of roots—tree roots that have been quietly in place and growing since before I first set foot on Takodah property nearly 60 years ago, a physical network underlying my own emotional roots at Takodah which have been quietly in place and growing for most of my life.
Let me just say here and now that my roots in painting are not nearly as well established!
It was all I could do to send out even a tender root hair or two today in my studio. Started with an idea other than the roots, an idea that never found purchase. Wiped off my canvas, applied a coat of gesso. In painting my second go-around—the roots—I found myself in a messy middle ground, somewhere neither freeingly reckless nor satisfyingly intentional but that was nonetheless—and I borrow the name of a particular type of root system here—adventitious.
All part of establishing my root system, I'm thinking. I'm drinking in nutrients in big gulps.
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| Camp Root System 6x6", acrylic on canvas board abstract 2015 |
5 comments:
I was JUST thinking of the tree roots at camp, and marveling that those same roots have been there all 20 years that I was away, just quietly awaiting my return whenever the time came. The roots in this musing were the ones in the path outside The Birches, the ones campers always have to step over going to/from the dining hall. What a miraculous thought that those roots have been there all those years, under my 3-year-old feet ... under my 17-year-old feet ... and now, just a few weeks ago, under my 36-year-old feet and the feet of my husband and children.
...and under the feet of my grandmother, and my mother, and my mother's sisters.....
Thanks for sharing your concurrent musings about tree roots!
Ironic that I chose in my painting to play with the flight of fancy of abstraction while my feet and thoughts were so "grounded."
What enduring networks we have under our feet at and through Takodah.
I thoroughly enjoyed the musings of you and Meg. May you continue drinking in big gulps of nutrients as you work on establishing your root system.
Thanks! Some days I think the wind might just rip my rudimentary root system right out of the soil!
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