A Sense of Place

One of the first works that is almost done

The rainbow was going down right at the studio windows , a most encouraging sight

Blog #7

Sunday afternoon August 13, 2017

I am counting the Dutch blog as one of them, so this will be the 7th time I am writing to you and to myself. It has been good so far, some ache and pains, but we did have those at home as well and the many blue/purple, and yellow colors on arms and legs can attest to that.

This is an old place, but the floor is original and was redone this year

I am pretty must focused on drawing and painting and checking email from time to time. We are also enjoying the music on the lap book since we cannot get the radio going. We forgot the on and off button for the Bose radio. Cooking we do together, because the many new buttons are hard to figure out when your vision is limited. So we manage to do what we came for, draw and paint.

So we use tarps when we use a lot of paint, like for the prime coat

Why did we need to do this, and go this far from home. It is a good question, and I have asked myself that question as well. I think it has to do with a sense of place. This place got to me, challenged me to look, where few were looking, but it is not just this studio space. It is the Prairie space that got to me for it is an awesome place, a scary space at first, until you start looking. Drawing was my way of looking at the vast expanse in small increments. Each one of the 60 drawings, 40 watercolors, and 40 oil studies became part of that new understanding. It taught me anew to look and be inspired by that sense of place. Later I could do the larger works at home in the studio and return to be looking anew at these images for they were mine, I had digested the raw materials through the process of drawing and painting.

But there is yet another sense of place when I thing back to the late 80 and early 90’s and the way I connected with three individual who shared that deep sense of place connected with the space of the Prairie. That connection was broken when Martin Oordt and Carl Granzow, a poet and a sculptor, died. But I have tried to come back to reconnect and honor that very unique relationship we had as artists, each in our own field. Where else can you find four individuals, me a Calvinist in many ways as the painter, Martin Oordt, still loyal to Calvin College, as the poet; Carl Granzow, the installation artist, was a Mennonite and Ken Hicken the composer, is a committed Mormon, collaborating on PRAIRIVISION, as we did in 1994 and 1995. That collaboration gave me another sense of place in the art world. So I return, seeking new inspiration, new insights, in what is by now both familiar and new. In other words I keep seeking a sense of place and I thank al of you who have supported me in some ways. Maybe more on this later.

Peace

Chris and Greta