WHOLENESS AND DETAIL
Like most large works of art, people will look at it from a distance relative to its size in order to take in the content of the entire work. However, there are those that are more probing with curiosity and will come in to the artwork, as close as permitted, to look for something hidden, a secret that the artist will inadvertently reveal. For some it’s the stroke of a brush, for others is the texture or the layering of materials, and for others it’s just to get a rounded, more complete “look and feel” for the details that comprise the work, to better access the whole.
The Natural Mandala is currently on tour and in every venue that it has been presented I have noticed there being this one consistent trend. People will see it from the distance that they enter the room and will be drawn in toward it, and although they may move from side to side before it, they seem to be trapped in intimate proximity by its gravity. They look for long periods of time at its detail as if to move their eye upon some secret key that will unlock the meaning of the whole. They marvel at the detail, and yet I am beginning to believe that it is not “my” detail by which they marvel, it is nature that has recaptured their innocent fascination for variety and beauty.
I offer you this option to view the detail that comprises the whole. Within this detail you may find as others have, an innocent fascination that these samples from nature bring to your sense of wonderment. For even the most common piece of nature may reveal the secrets of Master Creator; what does color and texture mean to nature and what does beauty and lyricism have to do with structure in organic forms and is ornamentation a man-made construct or is it a law that science has yet to stumble upon. I believe it is questions like these that could be answered if we could only fully understand this language that nature speaks. |
