Thanks to my wife and her appreciation for our local place of shared knowledge
Olive Free Library the framed works pictured above were selected by the curators among a number of images submitted for the animalia 8th annual small works show.
thanks to the art committee for taking the work into the show even though they exceeded the 12"x12" max size restriction by a couple inches on the vertical plane after framing.
the 2 watercolor paintings are a number of years old, part of a series of portraits of aquatic macroinvertebrates inspired by my interactions with living samples at the aquatic macroinvertebrate station of the tide line programs of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater's education programs.
On the wood floor leaning on the wall before hanging are the original pieces as left by the artist
and the spirits of interlocking parts throughout the significance of choice and chance
surface placement attention awareness showcasing submerged overlooked oracular opportunity.
a presentation and display of what can be learned from little things from a different perspective
That everything is alive and being beyond the understanding and awareness of the countless individual participants involved, each responding to the world as they feel it.
a black fly larva, a tiny speck to the naked eye depicted uncharacteristically singularly attached to a surface fixed from the rear, just beneath the shallow wet plane the moving water flowing over head moving fan dance response bringing all respiration and nutritional needs
directly to the lucky wet place that the mother laid her many eggs. The immature immobile passive filter feeder quickly pupates leaving its skin and the waters' surface as a tiny poorly flying insect adult that has a painful bite.
short lived seasonal presence magnified with its 2 teeny tiny eyes looking out at the viewer in this painting what would be obscured by the reflected sky if observed in the field.
the lesser water boatman is an adult insect easily recognized moving on the liquid surface with specially adapted legs for mobility in aquatic life acting as oars to propel its buoyant body around
that demonstrate amazing awareness and control agility, and speed with thoughtful intelligence and deliberate action that has evolved over many generations of insects leaving the land of walking and crawling behind for air from the surface, life on the water and food foraged from whatever is available reacting to changes in their environment and move on as depicted with rear legs extended over the head directionally oriented .
top of the composition, the 2 eyes are present approximately where they should be attention centered balanced forward moving
to characterize and generalize the spirit of a life form is not the artists intention yet that might be the best tool of expression available to differentiate the many existing beings observed that have unique related compositions and habits forms and states within the world in which we live.
The subject is not the external shapes of biological beings
but what is alive and aware inside of those individual physical forms
different sensitivities
life experiences
behaviors
habits
feelings
choices
minds
thoughts
participating in a process across this whole Planet -Nourishing Earth
Healing Learning Growing
DNA is not the container of predeterminism that materialistic marketing media promotes it to be.
Non-human life has a spiritual dimension, a nonphysical aspect that is real outside of the hierarchies
imposed on the minds of theologians and scientists of spiritual evolutionary process
All things great and small have their own reason for being and a life to live
with psychic abilities accessing life directing ways of being from outside
of the individual or familiar group
All have an inner voice
inherent instinctual internal imaginative instructive interest
what is felt inside
the soul is not the possession of the body
it is not owned by an awareness of agency but is borrowed and returned from its source.
intuitive knowledge of
experiential wisdom accumulating meaning over time from life and the imagined lives of others
developmental stages
life spans in timelines
places in systems
territories in habitats
expressions in exhibitions
