GAIA Series
The GAIA Series is an unfolding body of larger drawings reflecting a personal journey and engagement with cosmogenic and ecological themes. This series was unplanned, as are the drawings themselves, rather an impulse of inspiration arrives and I follow the lead… dot by dot… over many months of stippling an artwork emerges. The drawings below are all done in stipples using a .13 Rotring pen, a nib that is incredibly fine and increasingly hard to source as technical drawing has largely transitioned into the digital realm.
Due to the length of time that these pieces take to create the originals are currently not for sale, however a limited edition of archival prints are available to purchase, you are welcome to contact me directly if you are interested.
Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer | ink on paper | 101 x 72 cm
“Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashion the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
Call to Prayer
Call to Prayer | ink on paper | 86.7 x 73 cm
The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.
– excerpt from ‘The Bell and the Blackbird’ by David Whyte
The Temple
The Temple | ink on paper | 77 x 99.5 cm
I have traded my soul for the universe.
Don’t speak.
The jeweler who thought he was buying gold
to work with now owns the mine.
But commerce metaphors are wrong.
What has happened to me is more profound,
like a fish underwater beginning to say words.
A transparent tree grows in the nightsky orchard
where I have found a little corner to be in,
as when two planets interect.
I have met Sham.
– ‘A Transparent Tree’ by Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
The Prayer
The Prayer | ink on paper | 100 x 72 cm
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
Joy Harjo – Eagle Poem
