Drawing Challenge

     This drawing challenge took me further in  my exploration of impertinent art than I had ever explored before. One fatal of mine that has followed me into my art is that I take myself too seriously. However, when dealing with impermanence there is no room for the seriousness of perfectionism when one’s are may as well be gone tomorrow. It was after contemplating these ideas of permanence and impermanence, the freedom that impermanence brings and the deceptive nature of things which seem permanent, that I arrived at my theme for this drawing challenge.

 

 I was drawn to the symbol of nature and leaves as representatives of impermanence. No one leaf lasts for more than a few years and yet a tree may survive for thousands of years. And yet cities, which are panicles of human power and progress and appear to have permanent attributes, each crumble in due time.

                                    *Panama City on Green Leaf*

 I sought to continue to define the meaning of permanence and impermanence for myself in the second half of the project as well. The retrospection brought on by my other class (specifically ‘Stories worth Telling’ taught by Dr. Gurney) had brought to mind two childhood poems, “By The Sea Shore” and “My Shadow”, both by Robert Lewis Stevenson. It was perhaps these two poems combined with the Nature Cities I had made that inspired the shadow paintings.

 

 What began as a silhouette of a card board box meant to resemble the empty windows of an apartment building take on more character as the locations and window sills themselves change and the space becomes more occupied. I took a different picture all along the walk back to my dorm as I contemplated the spaces, people and things who have occupied my heart and mind as I have made this journey Home (Philippians 3:20-21).