Thin Places
“There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery.”
Usually I create a series of paintings by having a theme or interesting question in mind, and then mulling on it it while painting. I don’t have a specific direction or answer until close to the end of the series. In the case of this series, I had a lot of jumbled thoughts and ideas and questions all at once very soon after beginning the preparatory studies for Abyssinia, Jerry. I started feeling the need to organize my ideas. I was making associations & connections faster than I could paint them. I started to drop any concept, theme, phrase, image, or poem that felt related in a Google document. I created an “inspo” folder in my photos, saving work by artists I admire.
Featured prominently are works by John Hull and Nancy Friedland. Both of these artists create works that feel like a snapshot in time. Both artists create work concerned with narrative with loose brushwork. Nancy Friedland often creates nocturnes where dark surroundings emphasize a glowing, bright subject.
I found myself drawn to dark jungle scenes, reminiscent of illustrations in children’s fairytales and novels, as well as the wilder corners of the Lowcountry. There are places and spaces in this area that feel very ancient and almost magical, especially early morning, or twilight.
All of this dredged up the memory of a fever dream of an opera my grandparents had on VHS when I was a kid— L’Enfant et les Sortileges. In it, a boy mistreats his pet squirrel, and is punished by his nanny— and while he is banished in his room, his furniture and china plates come to life and start scolding him. He ends up running out into his garden where he discovers that the creatures in his yard have become human-sized and sentient. This 80s rendition is somehow both charming and terrifying at the same time.
It also was during this time that I started browsing the Poetry Foundation’s website, looking for work that reflected my mood, and spoke to my grief. I gravitated toward work that rejected platitudes and described the post-sudden loss experience with humor and starkness.
“When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla
you must count yourself lucky.
You must offer her what’s left
of your dinner, the book you were trying to finish
you must put aside
and make her a place to sit at the foot of your bed,
her eyes moving from the clock
to the television and back again.”
Featuring work by Nancy Friedland, John Hull, Jonathan Keeton, Ivan Montoya-Vazquez
All of these distinct sources— poems, images, theater— went into digital and physical mood boards. I printed some of the visual sources and posted them on boards in my studio. These discrete ideas, colors, moods, and styles started to coalesce into a question: what if there were “thin places” in the Lowcountry, where the visible and invisible worlds touch, or come close to touching? Would that make our deceased loved ones closer to us? How could we tap into that magic? Could a loved one act as a spiritual guide between worlds?
