Maybe people see like bugs.
Light comes into the human eye through a single lens. But like the compound eye of a bug which receives information from multiple points of view, the human brain understands that single shaft of light by sending it through innumerable, interpretive lenses, each ground into a unique shape by genes and [...]
Along A Long Line
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Category Archives: Equator
Bug Eyes
7 paintings in Progress
The following 7 works were created out of doors in the very rainy Oriente of Ecuador near the primary forests of the Jatun Sacha Foundation. Arranged chronologically, the paintings are mostly complete, although touch up may be necessary when I see them in the studio. The title of each painting includes the date that the [...]
Casa y Jardin
Very naturally, as if I was one of her babies, Juanita patiently repeats simple Spanish words and phrases to me. Juanita Cerda is the cook where I am staying and we have become friends through simple exchanges. “Como esta?” is her morning call and “Muy bien” is my proud response.
Juanita lives with her husband, Anibal [...]
Accumulation
It’s good to share the stories of a day with those you love forever. But when it is time to speak to those important people, it seems at first that there is nothing much to say. Maybe this delay is just the slowness of memory rising like bubbles through syrup. Or maybe it’s stinginess [...]
7 Paintings in Progress
The following 7 works were created out of doors in the Oriente of Ecuador near the primary forests of the Jatun Sacha Foundation. Arranged chronologically, the paintings are mostly complete, although touch up may be necessary when I see them in the studio. The title of each painting includes the date that the work was [...]
The Slopes of Peak Heat
If one could not see the beauty of the hours that bracket the equatorial day, they still would be acutely felt and heard, since the air is cool and the birds feed noisily on either side of a midday peak of 95° during which little stirs.
Friday was a day like that and it began [...]
Two Kinds of Terror
One
The rain forest is a impious Mass whose chords have nothing to do with human music.
Standing at the easel studying the landscape, I realize that converting this visual cacophony into an “artistic composition” requires willful incomprehension. There is no subject here, only a density of detail. Dynamic lines and suggestive forms abound, but to comb [...]
Canopy
The forest nearby is mixed growth. Thirty years ago this forest was cleared to raise cattle, but many of the most impressive trees were left for shade. The ranching was abandoned fairly quickly and now vigorous young plants compete with the towering old growth.
Through this forest passes a stony road, which is under siege [...]
Porous
In Quito I chose to stay at the Swissotel. Anxious about living in a place in which multiple inoculations are recommended, I chose the hotel for the antiseptic reputation of the managers, the Swiss.
The room was what I had requested, a chilled, tan asylum in which noise, germs, noxious gases, and strangers [...]
