Mental Weather (Blue)

“The principal fact is that the biosphere has existed throughout all geological periods from the most ancient indications of the Archean.” -Vladimire Vernadsky. This is a statistically incredible length of time for the conditions capable of supporting life to have remained so fundamentally constant. So what is this elan, gaia or geochemical riddle that now begins to quietly release her grasp? Figure ground, the bones of any picture, more and more my eye goes straight to the background. I’m interested in the air around our moment in the sun. Mental Weather is an ongoing series of drawings of weather, both physical and mental. I’ve been developing this work since the Thomas Fire, yet another California megafire, that swept through the Ojai Valley in 2017. The skyscapes intersect with various forms of abstraction. The use of materials and gestures search for a more tactile hold on the elusive atmospheric spaces. Images are scribbled through, pressed, submerged, or cut into various configurations. The cut drawings can be presented in multiple formats, playing with cast shadows or embedded in a blue lightbox frame that color the drawing and spill past the framed edge of sky.