Returning Home
Holding Closely & Finding Shadows
Returning home from a trip to the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce national parks, I’ve been meaning to record my impressions all week—the desert colors stay with me, the haze of vibrant pinks and dusky purples that tinge to reds and blues as we drive; the majestic formations of hoodoos and mesas and rocks, the markings of petroglyphs I had the chance to quietly take in with just trees and rocks for company.
I’ve felt both pulled to share and create since coming home, and as I was mulling it all over I happened upon two lovely travelogues from fellow artists. It felt like I sign to write one, but—
This is not a travelogue, just a spurring on for me (for you!) to take the gems and shape them or share them, hold them up and admire them for yourself.
A poet friend once mentioned if she shares the spark that will become the poem before it can, sometimes that very act becomes its final form and the poem eludes her, and I’m feeling a bit that way about anything I might have brought back from the desert.
Instead, I want to hold these a little longer, let them catch the light and see what facets are revealed.
Whenever I’m away from my sketchbook and making art for some amount of time, I return not to gather up the threads I’d been unraveling or stitching, but as if I must start completely fresh with no clear direction. I have to let myself for a time before I pick up the conversation with my previous self.
Returning home, I let myself make faltering marks, fill a small sketchbook with nothing but scribbled notes and half-hearted recordings I won’t share.
But the next weekend, I continue to falter on until the shadows find me. I’m reminded that inspiration doesn’t always need to be shaped and it can’t be forced. It doesn’t need to funnel clearly into the next mark on the page, but it can bring a bit of light and energy without requiring direct translation.
I’m letting the desert dust settle and slowly entering back into conversation with old sketchbooks, old selves, current worries and wonders. In the meantime, new light and shadows call to be recorded, intentions to be encoded.
The doors to and through the sunroom are open more days than not now, and a happy mess of sketches sits in the beams of light that filter through from all around. I’m capturing spring through shadows and plein air drawings and quickly snipped daffodils and tulips tossed into a jar.
This weekend, I’m setting up for a local backyard art fair—letting my art get a little more sun and fresh air.
