Return to the Grid

This summer's extreme drought and furious fires in northern New Mexico has given me pause. It has been a time of contemplation and reassessment, partly because it has been too hot to work in the studio. I have had time to reevaluate my priorities and become aware of inner urgings that are calling me to return to the grid (see some of my earlier posts from February and March). Painting the grids, I've realized, is therapeutic for me; they are healing in their simplicity and repetition, and very satisfying in their layered complexities. There is a meditative calm that filters down to me through the process of creating them, and I trust that these positive qualities will be transmitted to the viewer. Combining these visual characteristics with poetry and titles that reflect my reverence for nature, I hope to open up the territory for spiritual insight and communion with our deepest yearnings.

Twilight, oil on canvas, 18x18 inches, © 2011 Diane McGregor

At the Twilight

At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;
Then it landed on earth to look at me.

Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.

I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.

The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.

- Rumi -