Elemental New Mexico

Next Friday evening, February 1st, "Elemental New Mexico: The Desert in Form and Essence," opens at the Las Cruces Museum of Art, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I am honored to be joined by such esteemed artists.  The show was curated by Joy Miller, Exhibitions Curator at the museum.  Photography, paintings, and sculptures will be displayed.  I will be giving an informal talk regarding my work on Saturday, February 2nd at 1pm.  I hope you can join us for the opening reception on Friday, or for my talk on Saturday.

Natural Order

Experience shows that individual mandalas are symbols of order and that they occur in patients principally during times of psychic disorientation or re-orientation.  As magic circles they bind and subdue the lawless powers belonging to the world of darkness, and depict or create an order that transforms chaos into a cosmos.  ~ Jung

 

Cosmos, oil on canvas, 32 x 32 inches, © 2012 Diane McGregor

When I Am Among the Trees

by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay while."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

Process

"The working process and existence merge and there is no separation between life and work and the ultimate natural force of existence."  ~ Max Cole

Cosmos, oil on canvas, 32x32 inches, in progress

This is my latest painting, Cosmos, in progress.  My process begins with a heavily worked underpainting, a detail shown below:

Detail of Cosmos, work in progress

After I am satisfied with the underpainting, I begin to add titanium white oil paint over the prepared underpainting, using a dry brush technique.  I start from the upper left and continue until I reach the last block of the grid on the lower right.

 Detail of Cosmos, in progress

Although this process is extremely labor-intensive, I enjoy the meditative quality of my actions, and hope that the stillness and quiet of the white grid can soothe and calm the viewer as much as it does for me.  As winter descends on us here in the Sangre de Cristo mountains near Santa Fe, I am reminded of the purity of snow falling, steadily covering everything with a soft veil of white.

Silence

Let the waters settle

you will see stars and moon
mirrored in your Being. 

~ Rumi

 Field 1, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches, © 2012 Diane McGregor

 Field 2, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches, © 2012 Diane McGregor

In their quiet way, these grid paintings honor the mathematical perfection of the square. Squares within squares. Being obviously hand-made, however, they also honor nature. Human efforts to divide nature into perfect grids -- orchards, farms, cities, maps -- is an attempt to balance imperfection with perfection.  It's a conversation we have always had with nature. For me, using the grid brings me comfort and peace -- the practice of painting grids, however imperfectly, gives me a sense of balance and serenity, as I honor my own desires for perfection while recognizing the beauty of imperfection. The purity of the square, in particular, inspires me to simply be calm and methodical, to keep adding, one by one, each solemn square. These paintings emerge with a hushed, silent grace. I allow them just to be: simple, frank, humble, and welcoming contemplation.

Reflection and Perception

Matrix, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches, © 2012 Diane McGregor

The last two paintings I've completed -- this one, Matrix, and the one from an earlier post, Sunyata (Emptiness) -- have been very difficult and labor-intensive projects. I've decided that from now on, the grid paintings need to stay in a small format -- I'm figuring no larger than 24 inches square. 

Although there is an encompassing shimmer that is lovely to behold in this larger work, I faced some tough challenges that I didn't expect when I decided to increase the scale of my grid paintings.  When painting the smaller format grids, the whole painting can easily be "unified," a quality I strive for so that no part of the composition weighs more heavily than another part.  Working large, this is an almost impossible feat, and requires hours and hours of just staring at the painting.  To find the right rhythm and balance is an arduous and not very pleasant task when confronted with a large arena like these four foot canvases.  The extreme sensitivity it takes to make the decisions is psychologically and visually exhausting. 

Part of the reason why I love painting grids is the freedom from decisions.  Because I am using a "ready-made" compositional device -- the grid -- the parameters and rules are set up before beginning the work.  My only decisions (after choosing the color palette) then become confined to each rectangle of the grid -- tiny decisions which eventually accumulate into one harmonious and subtly balanced image.

My plans for more ambitious work now involve using series of panels that would make up a larger whole, an idea that will make each smaller panel part of a larger, more dynamic image.  The arrangement of smaller, square canvases will also emphasize the conceptual use of the grid as a compositional schema.