Painting, Alchemy, Calendrical Art

For me, paintings are alive: alchemical first matter. As the encounter between the raw canvas and my painting-self begins, we seem to enter into darkness, almost unseen. We don’t know what form this time together takes and we like it this way. Lying fallow, I sit with the painting, taking time with it, getting to know it. Something new registers and I’m surprised that I never noticed it before. The milky flow between us feels good and though I’d like to exist forever in its movement, the painting seeks more. It desires the moon to dance with the sun. Silver connects, carries, transforms: yellow heats, holds, coagulates. Perhaps, thinks the painting, moon and sun might eventually co-emerge; differentiated, mutual, connected. To begin, though, they quarrel and sulk, harbour dislikes, disappointments and jealousies and on occassion turn their backs from each other. They always return. They soften. We soften. The painting and I recognise our life together and a simpler relationship unfolds. When unfamiliar shapes and lines emerge on the surface, rather than obliterating from fear, I respond with compassion and with love. Accepting the other for what it is and what it is becoming. It smiles back at me, noticing me, recognising me. Something of our pilgramage echoes in the changes of the calendar year and the movement between darkness and brightness; between registers of non-consciousness and layers of consciousness. Each year I work with eight alchemical transition points: the Celtic cross quarter days, the solstices and equinoxes. Each year I work with similar material but from different perspectives and, sometimes, with new understanding.