“Stillness in the Fire” 16″x20″ Mixed Media

As an image maker, I not only paint the lushness of a single moment but I use the canvas ( or in my case a board) to reflect upon the ideas that the image communicates to me. This was the last light near the winter’s solstice, near a forgotten field on Rumford Road in Mansfield, MA. In the midst of the confusing gray tangles, there were a few remaining leaves that still retained the glories of autumn’s full palette. Because of the tenacity of the few battered leaves , their worn forms glowed with the fire of the receding sun, like jewels glittering in a sculptural formation arranged by primal forces. That sensibilty of stillness comes from a knowing connection that like the leaves, we are being carved by the vicissitudes of our fragile existence only to be illumined by a fire that never disappears but promises to radiate the essential when all the dross is gone. And in a flash , we realize the papery shapes and the eternal were dancing together in a mind’s eye and in witnessing I stand profoundly grateful for the perceptions of that moment.