The workspace has to be clean and organized to proceed. I mount the inked over sketch on some cardboard with masking tape. The fabric is stretched tight; the ink lines barely show through. Those ink lines are my guide, my pattern, but as you will soon see or feel, the wax has a mind of its own. I pull out the batiking tools and turn on the wax pot. I open a window, best to keep the wax fumes to a minimum. A vapor mask is not a bad idea either. In these moments, when everything must be placed just so, the right heat, the right blend of wax, the right tools, as I'm waiting for the wax to reach the right temperature...my mind tends to be the most open, like a pause in the wind, that second when everything is quiet, before the roaring starts again.
The Workspace, the Fabric, the Subject
This time the fabric is cotton broadcloth. The kind used to make flour sac towels. I like it because it has sewn edges, but I have yet to see how the paint behaves on it. I've used a variety of different fabrics, and they all have different character. Sometimes the most dramatic painting effects have been on the humblest fabrics, sometimes the best cracking effects have been on the most expensive. The combination of all these factors, and the outcome...those are the things that keep me amazed - just like all the intersecting creatures and forces in ecology. These intricacies, these millions of possible outcomes, the infinite...it keeps me so amazed. And, really it is 'amazed' that I mean. Amazed at how all these intersecting parts become something new, something inexplicable, like how an orchestra tuning can suddenly turn to music. Suddenly, in all the chaos, in all the intersecting parts...there is order, a song.
The sea turtles are humble creatures, quiet herbivores, living and playing among beds of Sargassum and other sea grasses. They say they can live to 80 years. No wonder they seem so wise. What might they tell us, if they could? What might we learn from them, if we wanted? They seem to me to be the embodiment of peace to me, floating in the warm seas, riding currents across oceans, returning time and time again to their home, their birthplace. Born in the sands their great grandparents were born in, and then traveling thousands of miles across the open water only to return, again, to the place from where they came. It is beautiful, circular, simple...but not so simple. Imagine all the intersecting parts that must align for these creatures to make their journey. Imagine all they must know from their travels, all they must have seen, all they must have thought. How is it possible? But it is, because it happens, and it is amazing. It is the divine, or the divine within, I think. The journey brings such wisdom, which shows in every wrinkle of their face, wisdom to know and to let go, wisdom to work, for the journey is hard work, and the wisdom to just float in humility, sweetness and in peace.