Title
Feeders at Sunset in the Clove
Artist
Terrance DePietro
Medium
Painting - Pastel
Description
The early '80s was a period to reconnect, reevaluate and search a cohesive directness to the eclectics of the process and imagery that was pulling me in several directions...By 1984 something was arriving; even if it also would be displaced, the imagery, the labor, the new knowledge gained, has been immeasurable to all that arrived for decades after.
It would seem, that no matter what creative corner a person attempts to explore, in time, the lessons learned are recognized as most profiting. Our dispositions might not announce themselves in a straightforward fashion; but in their own serendipitous arrangements, they have us gather, from all corners, the ingredients that will be necessary to satisfy their desire.
The image at hand was an example of the explore of mingling: the form of a tree, growing in a mountainous landscape, - twisting itself in vie with the surrounding trees, the cast shadow of ledges and slopes - raw and at Mother Nature's demands and temperament; with the sensuousness of female form, in its allure, its intimate and marvel to a young man's imagination...
I cannot say that the 'image', so depicted, was in mind; nor that any one, static, image was complete to mind. And yet, the image presented, in truth, is more than ever imagined - the 'impression' that was sought is present but it is exceeded. Perhaps what I mean is that, the idea of the image was something 'longed-for' for many years.
The idea of mingling the two, came most spontaneously, intuitively, at least once, perhaps more. But certainly from an earlier photograph ('Over the Ledge', 1965) of a tree growing atop a huge boulder, in the Kaaterskill clove.
From my vantage, at the bottom of the boulder, I was forced to look almost straight upward, where visible I gazed at an extraordinary sight. A tree, wide around enough that I would not be able to wrap my arms and join my hands, whose roots were all that clung to the rock; having the appearance in form similar to a derriere, resting over its upmost edge; and rising from the round, turning evenly in likeness of a slender back, as the trunk twisted to the canopy above. What was impressing, was not only the massiveness of the ageless tree, literally suspended in air; but how anthropomorphic in semblance, proportion and character it stroke my mind.
I had often regarded, and was impressed, by roots; how they stretched, twisting over, under, around most any terrain; clinging at every crevice, nook or cranny available. How they resembled hands, clawing at the soil; legs flung over stones and ledges; and were most natural as metaphor of 'entanglement'. I sketched their characteristics and frozen some to film; but the tree of question, has ever since been the 'association' that comes to mind.
Training myself, honing the artist's craft, had pressed me into contact with both nature and the feminine form; and as I was disposed to 'representational' imagery, in time, found myself at across-road to chose one over the other. Coincidentally, in a way, one day I found myself more intrigued with abstraction than realism...and magically...I needed not to chose! Might we say it was a 'meaningful coincidence?
10jan17 tdp
Copyright 2017 All rights reserved
NOTE: the image 'Over the Ledge' from1965, is illustrated in the 'Prologue to The Nature that Loves to Hide'. Found at Blurb.com, this is the first in a series of books that express my thoughts on art, nature; the creative process and journey of an individual, spanning fifty years of creative involvements in photography, painting, print making, poetry, dream-work and the contemplation of life's 'Purposive Ambiguity'. It is a narrative account of a creative life's unfolding, as well as an exampling of several liminal stages of aesthetic possibilities for a subject, passing through: realism, representational, surrealism, alchemy, non-objective, abstract, Abstract Expressionism and what still is unfolding from Modernism and Abstract Expressionism...It is also available as a PDF for class study.
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January 9th, 2017
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