Fastwater and Rocks
oil on panel 12" x 16"
" I know nothing better than being present and clear eyed when the miracle happens."
Robert Henri
"Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude are everything."
Rainer Maria Rilke
Someone asked me how I could get the movement in the swirling water of a fast moving stream - how could one make paint do this? The only answer I know is to see with the closest possible care and to know how to see form, shape, space, value. But then one must use memory and understanding and imagination as well. Forty years of using oil paint allows a certain freedom as well and it is vital to trust one's drawing.
There are times when I am so immersed in the process that I'm is not entirely sure of how it came about. I think that immersion is what Henri refers to as 'being present,' and perhaps
Rilke's 'porous ego' is the ultimate state of awareness, in this case, of what that water is actually doing. Enjoy!.
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