Before we get to the new year which, surprisingly is less than two weeks away, I want to share a few of my sketchbook experiments from the fall.
Back when I started this journal in September I added a few fold out pages here and there. This is my first from September 8th. (I usually date my pages but I missed this one.)
I went to a local farm with a few artist friends and as they spread out to paint the rolling landscape I chose to capture the barn. The silo would fit perfectly on the left fold up once the page was expanded.
I positioned myself so the truck would be hidden when the page was closed.
I added some fancy lettering and continued the grass across the base to complete the page.
Page size and shape presents different challenges to my sense of composition. I have a few other fold out experiments to share so stay tuned!
After this week of upheaval I again tried to put my life and these times into perspective. Enter Carl Sagan and his Pale Blue Dot speech. Just hearing it again inspired me to reflect, revitalize and create a journal page honoring my… and I hope… our resilience.
Thank you Ken Takahashi and YouTube for this wonderful video.
That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
For me, nothing helps more when faced with a loss than the simple and centering act of drawing.
I spent yesterday morning sitting on a curb, in the sun, trying to capture the receding buildings along a Vermont side street. It was immensely healing.
Followed by a quick lunch with friends… yes, my spirits are revived.
As I was working on my InkTober self portraits a friend suggested I create a calendar with each of my selfies pasted on the dates in order. Great idea I thought… of course, I have absolutely no idea how to do that.
But I DO know how to create a slideshow/movie. If the embedded movie fails to play, please view on YouTube.
Dana Burrell... Art 