world of detail

Bunter is an English Bulldog. He lives with me. It is late and I am sitting here at my laptop and he is busy digging into the kitchen cupboard that is home to my plastic storage containers. He is looking for a toy because he continually searches for playthings. 

Recently he was in the living room pouncing on some object of play near the window. The commotion was distracting, so I investigated and found that his “toy” was a bee. Bunter had killed it quicky without maiming (he’s much better at this than me) and was tossing it about the room.

I thanked him as I picked up the tiny insect body and added it to my collection of interesting things to draw and paint. I don’t mind working from field guides or photographs, but having the subject in hand generates an intimacy… a familiarity that is far superior to a flat photo. I ran a needle through the bee’s body and stuck it in a Pink Pearl eraser. Using a 10x magnifier with a light I began my study.

Study implies attention…absorption. Barbara and I were out walking last week and she told me how she really would like to take a year and really study just one author’s works. That would involve reading the books and the commentaries and then generating questions and feedback with others who have a similar focus. It would lend to a deep understanding of that author and the mind that birthed those literary creations. This same idea plays out well with paint and canvas….and a bee.

Under the lighted magnifier is a world of detail that is by and large valued by a marginal group of individuals like Henri Fabre and some friends (authors and fellow artists) who love to notice the underappreciated.

For several days I looked at the bee and recorded what I saw. I could not help but wonder if this fascination with my discoveries is much like the experiences of early naturalists like Fabre, Muir, and Audubon who studied and recorded the life around them. I think it is how we experienced life about us when we were toddlers.

Concentrating on a single subject…like a bee… to know it intimately and to record it well….not shifting to boredom…is a kind of contemplation or prayer that is transcendent.

I have loaded new pieces in several of the "pages" on the left.