TO GROK LANDSCAPE

Thank Goodness [It's Raining] Oil on linen 92 x 207 cm

To grok is to intimately and completely share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok

 

Regular readers will know of my concerns for the planet, particularly with regards to water and soil. Since I started this BLOG in 2006 I have often written about my concerns, plus the paintings which I call my 'quiet activism'. My more obvious visual statements are made using small $ signs and words to create ambigious 'landscapes', which pose questions about how we 'value' our land, and its live giving and sustaining qualities. In Australia and elsewhere we are witnessing a rush to extract huge amounts of minerals and coal seam gas. Like many others, I am not anti-mining per se, but I am anti rushing into extraction activities without a scientific analysis of the risks to water, food production etc. There are enough scientists, and others with experience, calling for caution to indicate that there are risks...and major ones.

Earth For Sale Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm

This painting is created with small $ signs.

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/07/earth-for-sale-120-x-160-cm-oil-on.html

But, this post is not about mining or coal seam gas or farming. Rather, the paragraph above is a short backdrop for new readers.

TO GROK?

As I ponder the environmental dilemmas confronting the world today, I can't help but think about the manner by which we are connected to land. Yes, we use it, move around upon it, photograph and paint it, some watch it from satelites, we dig into it, we manipulate it for all sorts of reasons. However, I sense we largely see ourselves as separate from it. We are observers, witnesses, users, particpants upon. Yet, what if we saw ourselves as part of the landscape, enmeshed with its ebbs and flows, absorbed into the one pulse of life? What if we were to grok with the land, the Earth?

I suspect that early humans did not differentiate themselves from the land, their environment. From the distance of thousands of years into a future characterised by dilemmas of survival, our forebears' attitudes seem highly evolved.

 Heaven and Earth Oil on linen 90 x 200 cm

How can we return to a early humankind relationship with land, in a way which is reconcilable with their future...the one we now inhabit?

SYMBOLISM

I'd like to suggest that the answer lies with potency of symbolism. And regular readers will know what I am going to write next. Yes! The age-old transcultural/religious tree-of-life symbol holds clues, I'm sure, to how we might re-imagine our future relationship with Earth and land...and given modern understanding of outerspace...with the cosmos as well.

I am sure there are other age-old symbols which have the kind of potency that can propel re-imagining forward, as it speaks to the past. However, for me, the tree-of-life holds so much endless potential to re-awaken human race memories of connection and rapport with our environment, its physicality and its spirit. The vascular quality of the tree, speaks of systems...and systems keep us and the planet alive. I'd suggest that systems also ensure the propulsion of the Universe...and possibly the Multiverse! We may not understand, or have even identified, some of these systems, but we know they must exist. As I have writen before I have faith in complexity!

 Radiance Oil on linen 92 x 208 cm

Mountains and Metaphors Oil on linen 80 x 200 cm

PAINTINGS
The paintings I have uploaded for this post are a selection of 'landscape' paintings since 2006. All, but the one immediately above, depict the tree-of-life totally absorbed...grokked...into the 'scape'. It is THE energy at the same time as being THE 'scape'...one influences the other to manifest. The tree, as a symbol of life, is simultaneously a symbol of us and our environment, here on Earth and within the Multiverse.

In Mountains and Metaphors the moutains are symbolic of overcoming adversity.

Into My Galaxy Oil on linen 80 x 120 cm

Majesty and Order Oil on linen 36 x 36 cm

The Beginning Of Everything Oil on linen 90 x 180cm

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/beginning-of-everything.html

................................................................................................................................................................

FOR EVERYONE: WORDS AND PANTINGS

BOOK UPDATE

Please check out Kris Wampler's great online interview about

FOR EVERYONE

http://kriswampler.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/interview-kathryn-brimblecombe-fox/

Plus

http://www.spbroundup.com/nonfiction/religion

and

http://bloggers.com/KathrynBrimblecombe

and

for book launch details, where to buy etc etc

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/p/my-book-for-everyone-words-and.html

................................................................................................................................................................

FOLLOW MY BLOGThank you to everyone who is visiting my BLOG...currently between 2,500 and 3,000 of you a month!

Please FOLLOW me by clicking on the 'Join This Site...Google Friend Connect' button on the right side column. Or submitting your email where it says 'Submit' also on the right column [up the top].

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

'LONG DISTANCE IN HER EYES'

Prayer Gouache on paper 21 x 14.8 cm



Archetype Gouache on paper 21 x 14.8 cm
I am reading a wonderful book at the moment. It is 'The Brain That Changes Itself' by Norman Doidge MD. I highly recommend this book for many reasons. It gives you faith in your own capacities to not only cope with age, impediments, accidents, illness etc, but to change your faculties to enjoy life to its fullest even in the face of aging, accidents, blockages, illness etc. This book re-inforces my belief, which I have written about on this BLOG before, that complexity holds the potency for solutions. I have voiced my thoughts about this with regards to the environment, but it is also applicable to our own bodies. The book investigates everything from learning difficulties, strokes to OCD and other issues which negatively affect our enjoyment of life.

It seems to me that whilst we may not understand the complex systems of our environment or our bodies, we must have faith that the complexity is the element which will provide the answers. Yet, we shortsightedly simplify the potency of complexity by something which is akin to a lack of faith. New research [and some of it not so new, but now embraced!] is revealing the potency of our complex systems to renew, recoup and re-invent themselves. Of course we need to look after ourselves and our environment but we also need to be open and compliant to forces which we may not understand or even be aware of...now isn't that having faith?

As I often do, I refer to the act of painting, which is itself an act of faith. Faith not only in my ability to choose practical and obvious things such as the right colour, brush etc, but also faith that points of disaster and accident or plain 'things just don't seem to be going that well' are part of the process of creation. It is a dance where I am being lead by forces which are seemingly unknown but felt through powers of intuition. In a way it is a return to the faith I had as a child. I am sure many of you know what I mean.

The two paintings above are again my much loved tree-of-life. The top one 'Prayer' is a reminder of the beauty of faith. The second painting called 'Archetype' explores ideas of compexity being achetypical. The tree reflects system-like action which includes shedding as well as renewal. The tree is a perfect metaphor for this because trees shed leaves and branches, some are deciduous, others are pruned, some are burnt, yet processes of renewal through new leaves and shoots or new life borne by wind-blown seeds, remind us of the constancy of life in complexity.

I am going now to share two poems with you. One was written by my grandmother D.E Ross and the other by my mother Elsie Brimblecombe. Both poems are about ageing and both poems reveal that ageing is also a renewal and a source of new insights. My grandmother and mother published a book of poems 'Out There' in 1986 when my grandmother was 87 years old. She died at 92 having been a poet, author, artist, accountant!!! [and a partner in an accountancy firm in W.A], girl guide commissioner, mother of one, grandmother of three, plus a whole lot of other wonderful things. She had her first poem published in a Western Australian newspaper when she was 14. My mother is equally as amazing and is a poet, writer, teacher, artist, great cook, has completed 3 university degrees from the University of Queensland, mother of 3 and grandmother of 8... and of course there is the etc etc etc!

GRATUITOUS YEARS by D.E ROSS copyright

These are the years
that softly fall
on the heart and face.
Cosmetic in effect
they remove all trace
of grievance
with it petulant engraving:
and in its place
evoke gracious gleams of patina
with remembering highlights
of days thought past recall.

Brooding lines
skip merrily
to the music of laughter,
a smile illuminates wherever it can reach.

In this bright climate
courage takes the highway,
and scorns the crypted niche.

OLD AGE by Elise Brimblecombe copyright
The moon played it part
in the bleaching of your hair
Your lines are etched
upon the disc of the sun
The world moves too quickly
for you slowing steps
And the giddiness of youth
has returned to your head

You clutch the bannisters
as you mount the stairs
And dwell too long
upon the rests
You creep from room to room
in tired chase
On the well-knonw track
once travelled at an easy pace

Yet in the mystery of your age
lie secrets
Hidden in the stars
Faint revolutions
Link this planet and the spheres
And in the texture of your life
Is woven more than the pattern of your
years.

My grandmother wrote a poem about me when I was a small child. I was prone to deep thinking and I remember trying to work out life and the universe. I really enjoyed thinking...then school interrupted me for 12 years...and the residual!!!

BY D.E ROSS copyright
A tiny grandchild
barely four years old
sits chin in chubby hand
long distance in her eyes.

Whatever is the matter, Katarina?
I have sad thinkings,
she wistfully replies.


Looks like 'distance' has been a part of me for a long time! Regular readers would know of my intense interest in perspective and distance.
Cheers,
Kathryn