It was perhaps four years ago that I visited the Edisto Beach Interpretive Center. As I entered the front door, my eye was led to this quote high upon the wall; it is the first visual presented to visitors. The words went straight to my heart. I entered the quote into the notebook full of nature quotes that I was building at the time. I was illustrating the quotes in the notebook with watercolors.
That notebook is now full, and two other assignments are completed (“Things Are Alive” and “Art in the Making: Entering the Void with the Eyes Open”). As I formulate the third assignment since I began the blog, I once again arrive underneath this quote.
I appreciate the guidance I am receiving as I prepare for the next step of my journey as one who enters the void with the eyes open.
Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.
Is it possible to make a living by simply watching light? Monet did. Vermeer did. I believe Vincent did too. They painted light in order to witness the dance between revelation and concealment, exposure and darkness. Perhaps this is what I desire most, to sit and watch the shifting shadows cross the cliff face of sandstone or simply to walk parallel with a path of liquid light called the Colorado River. In the canyon country of southern Utah, these acts of attention are not merely the pastimes of artists, but daily work, work that matters to the whole community.
This living would include becoming a caretaker of silence, a connoisseur of stillness, a listener of wind where each dialect is not only heard but understood.
― Terry Tempest Williams, Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert
We are only a brush in the hand of the Master Painter.
–Rumi