From Source to Sea

When we slow down and match our pace, tune our attention to Nature, we become aware of the state of in-betweenness, the ‘in-process-ness’, the vulnerability, the fragility, humility and ultimately - the beauty - that we share with all the living world. It’s all in transit(ion), all the time, moving from point to point on its journey of growth, from birth to death, beginning to end. Nothing is complete or fixed. Nothing is ever finished.

I have come to believe that, while our psyches and our senses are attracted to fixed and unchanging states - beginnings and endings, starts and finishes - while we’re trained to improve, resolve, achieve and attain - it’s in the in-between space that the real magic happens. It’s in this space that we develop a sense of participation in what it means to be alive, embracing our incompleteness and committing ourselves to the humble act of growing.

In Nature, every living thing resonates with a baseline of belonging - just the way it is, in this time, in this place. When I walk through the marshlands with my dog, I feel accepting of the way things are, at peace with all the movement and change that is happening in my life, just as I observe it happening around me.

Nature reminds me that time and space are needed to move and grow. Instead of feeling troubled by the emptiness, uncertainty, unrest and unresolve, I feel grateful for the existence of unknown potential and possibility in my life.

‘From Source to Sea’ represents this, the sense of comfort I derive from being in nature, by depicting an abstracted river as it winds through the landscape, towards a distant horizon.

I’m envisioning the river as the ultimate symbol of growth, showing us how to move through time and space, from origin to ending - always changing, always growing - without ever abandoning ourselves. In every moment and every place along its journey, the river is always at home with itself.

In from ‘From Source to Sea’ I chose a subtly repetitive structure. Like Nature has days, nights, and seasons, and like the human body breathes: the structure returns in a way that feels familiar and comforting, but not restrictive; It feels rhythmic, but not rigid.

Within the known structure, there is a sense of infinite potential for subtle and spontaneous variation. Like the day, the season, and the breath, the pattern in the foreground returns to - but also reinvents - itself, again and again. It does this by staying true to its own movement, keeping its own rhythm, even as it integrates the changes of light and color and atmosphere that take place in the surrounding landscape, allowing these changes to act upon it.

My hope is that ‘From Source to Sea’ will bring an awesome sense of possibility from the outdoors, in. I hope that it will give the viewer a sense of calm, harmony, contentment and freedom, wherever she is on her journey. I hope she will embrace her in-betweenness and feel absolutely at home in the place that she is. I hope the horizon line will provide her with that base sense of belonging, giving her a sense of stability and groundedness, and orienting her in the vast space and in the infinite possibility that is the landscape of her own life.