Love Underground

My "Groundwork" series are a set of silk paintings that are focused on aquifers and how science and imagination collide when thinking of what is beneath our feet. My five year goal is to have an exhibition of these pieces and for this reason, as I work out my ideas, I will not be offering these long pieces for sale to customers until after this exhibition or unless they are local and can reload the item to exhibit (the exception so far is the third

The trees at the top of the piece are unchanged for the last several versions, the Ponderosa Pine of my youth and bringing in a younger version of the tree provides a "human relationship" for the viewer, both between the young and old tree and also in being able to imagine ourselves standing beside the trees. I am continuing to work out how to represent pockets of jewels or geodes lodged in the roots of the trees. My favorite portion of this area is the red/green marbleized effect I created just above the water layer.

This marbleized section was originally a bronze layer, but it didn't contrast well with the green layer below the water so I added some small lines of resist to create veins and then put on a layer of garnet dye, with salt to clot the dye and the result is magical. Speaking of magical, for me, the green layer represents the beginning of the "magical domain" underground and I picture florescent moss in my mind, hanging on the roof of the shafts and caves.

This banner is titled "Love Underground" because the magenta and wine colored banks of the underground lake exude a feeling of fire, of burning desire.

But, the cool lake drains into an unseen, underground cave where some darkness roils and finally drains in drips down into a cloud like domain of softer rose with a glow that speaks of the dawn. 

In the end, all that awaits is a ring of fire.