The Natural History of Light

This artwork comes from the artist’s series entitled The Seven Libraries of Babylon, purported to be fragments from the fictive writing, The Library of the Earth: The 55 Grammars of Eden. In this Library is preserved the first writings, the grammars and syntax of the garden.  Ancient herbals, venerable plants, burrowing insects, and pressed flowers inhabit this place next to great tomes listing the great cycles of seasonal events.  Timetables include the sacred fire festivals and harvest, catalogues of the sinuous calligraphy of rivers, scrolls of the cursive scripts of the winds, and the Books of Hours and Tides are all collated and collected next to rain cloud patterns and schematic drawings of lightning strikes.  It is the Library of the Earthly Terrain.

This particular work deals with the natural history of Light.  It presents information concerning “The Seasons, The Fire Festivals; and The Genders of Light."  It is similar to an Almanac that predicts events in the Landscape.

My paintings are created using beeswax and oil paint.  The wax is heated until it is in a liquid state, then brushed onto a gessoed canvas that has been glued to a plywood panel.  When the wax has cooled to a solid state, a propane torch is used to flatten the wax and eliminate all brush strokes.  The Text is then oil painted through a vinyl stencil that is created with computer and vinyl cutting plotter.  The lightscapes are painted in the traditional method using brush and oil paint. –Artist statement