Darker Skies
Part III
Willow (5-19-2020)
"I want to have two weeping willows facing each other on separate cliffs. The trunks are scratched white into the black sky. Their branches sink down along the length of the panels, weeping down into a body of water. The branches are bare except for the lowest tips, blooming with pure white leaves.
I clipped a few strands from a neighbor's tree. The leaves are spear-like and pointed, to better shed the tears. Or did the teardrops slowly give shape to the leaf?
I barely finish sketching four leaves from life as the sprigs of willow wilted and died on my desk. The tree knows nothing of sorrow, but it's soothing that the willow is willing to lend its shape to our roving feelings of pain and grief."
Herlinde Spahr, Notebooks
Darker Skies. Part III
The layout of this work, with the underwater view, was inspired by a magnificent oversized stone lithograph of 1840, the frontispiece of “Illustrationes Algarum” after drawings by Alexandre Postels. It documents life-size seaweeds and algae, the result of a scientific voyage commisisoned by tsar Nicolas the First.
Details
Title: DARKER SKIES. Part III
The third of three panels
Date: May 12 - May 31, 2020
Size: 60” x 30”
Media: Lithographic ink, litho tusche, lithographic pencil, oil paint, pencil, graphite, gouache, stencils, fingerprinting, erasers on Formica panel.
The scarred background is created with the lithographic levigator and carborundum. The lacerations get inked in the manner of intaglio
