'Sooth my Soul'

Reflections on my Body of Work called 'States of Being'

(how drawing soothes my soul and on the evolution of myself.)

'Sooth my Soul'

"States of Being is a series of drawings I create when I am out and about, eating by myself or in moments when I feel introverted, but am in the environment with people.

They are a way to hold myself in the company with what soothes my soul,

a respite,

a retreat for me to just be.

A world and exchange in which I feel utterly comfortable in, even if also the communication with line work embodies all the emotions I feel, from unsettling to nurturing my own confidence in being myself in the present.

Consoling, cradling my spirit, that I am ok.

Sometimes this is my only state of being through which I feel comfortable being a part.

As I otherwise and often feel like an outsider.

So on the peripheries of, amidst I sit and draw

It is a way for me to relate and to be in the moment.

Accenting a space in time.

And images appear, landscapes arrived from imagination,

yet symbolically for me alluding to the moment I experienced,

In which I needed to draw to settle my soul.

Or in which I needed to draw to simply express more of what is inside of me.

Or to draw because of what I am experiencing as one of all, surrounding me.

The body of work created I have now since more then a decade called states of being.

But I realize they should also be called in raw honesty for what they are to me personally. Besides being a cipher to geographies, cultural and psychic, spiritual landscapes and states of being reflected in the perspective, line work, shading, imagery and more, hence states of being, they are also drawings to ‘Sooth my spirit’.

And like the spring of life,

the spring of self,

the source from which all existence arrives,

I connect to the element of water, of earth,

of sky,

of light.

And in one way or another tend to draw formations of earth and water travelling through, over, around it, weaving, forming its path.

As the soul does,

finds its way and finds itself sometimes in canyons, wide open shores or streaming, from mountains sprung, to meet the ocean.

In this way, considering the arc of the years of drawing, it is as if I as the spring, the river, am finally cascading to merge with the larger self, already collected and becoming one,

with the ocean, from which to ascend and enter into circulation again.

Then I have indeed, reflected in the intuitive abstract imagery, arrived.

As I will a lifelong continue to arrive.

As drawing helps me to arrive, and anchor myself in the presence I am, whilst also liberating my spirit to travel into the scapes I draw, a reflection of and vehicle to transcend the state of being that I through soothing my soul, try to dissolve and evolve from.

The arc of becoming,

one by one.

As one artwork at a time is a key to the existence of mine."

CR Seahouses, Northumberland

Ephemeral Moments

JEWELS OF THE EARTH

Ephemeral Moment Photograph CR 18th February 2023

"A spec of time. A glimpse of Natures Majesty. Only through presence experiencing the awe, the wonder of Nature. Through acute listening to the senses guided to observe the wonders of life. Specs of time. Jewels of the Earth.

Ephemeral Moments only experienced when being present and discovering the now.

Rare as it is, and never relived." CR

Jewels of the Earth Photograph CR 18th February 2023

State of Being

Drawing 27th January 2023

Ballpoint Pen on Lokta Paper

12 x 12 in

This is an ongoing body of work I call 'States of Being'.

It must be more then a decade since I have started this work. I will have to find the first drawing I ever called states of Being and shared it. But I realized over time that every elaborate or quick sketch, whether on a napkin from a restaurant or such as in this case on beautiful paper from the Lokta bush of the Himalayan Mountains, would reflect the state of my being. In the the perspective, the dimensionality, the structure of the ever emerging formations of rocks, rivers, mountains and elements of the sky, taking up different shapes and forms, points of view, for me signifying a state of my soul, my mood, my emotions, my mind.

While each image is imagined it also informs of my devotion to Nature and my continuous study of it. The source of energy and nurture for all of our existence. Pacha Mama, Mother Earth.

I personally also feel an affinity to water. the different States through which it travels and the information it gathers on its way. Cycling through life, like we do ourselves, with time over space, carrying more and more experiences, encounters with landscapes it passes, ecologies through which and within it travels, to transform again and again through different states.

From Rain or mountain springs, like veins nurturing underground pathways, creeks, filling gushing streams, meandering rivers, to gather in the beds of the earth, the oceans, to through wind and sun, travel in rippling or roaring waves to different shores, evaporating under the warming rays into the sky again, to bathe nature into new life, with its showers of information, awakening or maintaining the cycle of living.

We ourselves cycle through stages of our lives in different states. States of Being has become for me a discovery of how imagery reflects the state of my spirit. Narrow gorges, seemingly endless rapids, give way to wider canyons, distant rock formations, and meandering peaceful waterfalls. Beyond the composition, the demeanor of the drawing tool used, and resulting mark making speak to the tranquility, restlessness or unease I might have felt during the period in which the drawing was created.

But as always the act of creating, giving myself the permission to just be, to breathe, not focused on knowing but just arriving in the moment, to see and trust the image to emerge over time. Sometime these drawings also emerge to pass time, but they foster an inner peace, a calmer presence and larger perspective of life within me. Initially art making is a way of coming to terms with simply feeling and observing.