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Permanence/Impermanence - Two words with similar sound, which are hard to spell and conjure many images.  I have been thinking about these in my art work for some time... What  reflects permanence; is there really anything which is permanent?  Two drawings come together:  

They each are about place, about cycles of living, and, in their own way, about birth and death.  They are not different, one from the other;  each is whole as it stands, and incomplete at the same time.  Each challenges the idea of permanence.

A drawing and a painting comlpleted at Schoodic Peninsula ask similar questions:

Are the rock masses of the Schoodic Peninsula permanent?  To what rhythm do they roll and change?  Will the  magma intruding into granite of the one make way for weeds over time?  This fall, on a warm and sunny mid November day, I went to Schoodic to paint.  I took all my oil painting gear.   As I left home I imagined the changing light of Autumn reflected on turbulent waters and solid rocks.  No one was at the end of Schoodic Peninsula when I arrived.  Walking around in the sun, feeling warm within and warmed from without, I looked.  Unexpectedly what called to me were weeds growing thru rock cleavages.  They were dry but alive, opportunistic in their rock beds.  Again I asked myself... what is permanent?  What is impermanent? and is there a difference.  

As I look back at paintings from last Spring and summer I find the same questions, explored thru a variety of mediums, places and images.  Each is about long history...  from where have we come? what is offered to us? what will our children's children know of time past and present?  Does it matter?

My answer for now is that it does matter.  As I come to understand impermanence, that even the rocks change over time, that our grandest accomplishments are neither grand nor enduring, then I am freed up to celebrate possibilities and change.  Impermanence gives us license to explore, to risk, to create.  It gives us hope.  

I was going through some boxes recently and found a card which I designed back in 1982.  What was shared then is relevant today .  I share it now for all of us to ponder as this Season of Light and Darkness, hope and despair cycles in our lives.

   "The world is awaiting its own re-birth.  With each new dawn, with each new day, the peoples of the earth have risen with the morning star, hoping that today will bring news of peace."

Blessings to you and to all who foster hope, work for peace, and speak out against fear, hatred, and suspicion.  May we all revel in the impermanence in our lives and our world.