I finally finished my new painting, Looking For Shelter, last month. It was a struggle, but that's nothing new. My process tends to be complicated and time consuming. I take that as a given. But this piece really was trans-formative. When I finished I felt that I'd put down a heavy stone.
Originally, I was inspired to use images of snow geese and traveled to the wildlife refuge at Tule Lake, California to find them. It should have been the correct time but the illusive birds had just left. This bird's migrations is legendary and to experience thousands of them taking off together is one of the wonders of the world, at least I imagine that it is. Darn. I'd been thinking about them a lot, as they are one of the few birds that fly all the way above the arctic circle to nest. They travel huge distances and their existence occupies such a fragile niche, vulnerable to any tiny shift in temperature or climate. They depend on the shrinking flyways and watering holes strung like pearls along their route.In that way their fate is tightly entwined with human consumption.
I did get some pictures of a small flock of tundra swans, which I later learned also nest above the arctic circle. It was a clear and windy late winter day. The lake was in stunning contrast to the austere desert landscape. The land was barren in multiple subtle variations on gray, rust, umber, hints of sage with violet shadows. The thin clear air of the high desert... I am in love with it.
So, change of plan. I decided to use the tundra swans, and of course changed the palette to closer resemble the winter desert color. Instead of an enormous overwhelming and joyous flock of snow geese rising, I went with a lonelier composition.I used the sheer beauty of the geese flying out of the painting toward you. I wanted their wild power. There is a rich history of indigenous peoples living in that area, and I wanted to add the presence of people in contemporary times. I added a relentless line of cars moving across the painting, and power lines.
I felt like I needed one more human element but hadn't settled on anything until I went to a friend's house to see a documentary on the Canadian tar sands oil development. I was very disturbed by the huge lakes they call settling ponds where migrating birds land and die in great numbers on their way north and south. I couldn't put it out of my mind and before long, images of the refinery went into my painting.
In Looking For Shelter, as in all of my current series, I try to give voice to nature in the context of human needs and technology.
