We need natural vistas to cultivate internal ones

          I desire power over the capacity to orchestrate my life. I achieve this by exercising the liberties bequeathed to me – defined by the activities of both social and professional ancestors. I have opted to express reverence for the past in my social behavior, and reverence for my professional peers with my actions.
          My need for freedom bonds me to Nature, exposing another similarity. If what makes me civilized is the capacity to reflect, and freedom is a requisite of that ability, than it is hoped that through reflection I will realize some new thought that was previously unknown to me. I will seize a new insight from the wild, undeveloped territory in my mind.

          Civilization may need comparable undeveloped territories in Nature as fuel for the activity of contemplation. We may actually need natural vistas in order to cultivate internal vistas. We may need undeveloped territories in Nature as a means of advancing, developing, and cultivating the symbolic systems of culture.
          When one considers that the materiality of our being inherently bonds us with Nature and that man can be studied by how he handles physical substances, than it can be said that how he handles Nature is a clue to his level of civilization.
          Our reverence for undeveloped natural spaces and land untouched by the hand of man may be the physical embodiment of the space needed in our mind for contemplation. Without this space our capacity to contemplate may actually falter.

          The activity of art enhances the artist's introspective capacity and from that stand point has utility - it is one of the means used to describe and embody our culture's symbolic systems. But many people seem to consider introspection either a luxury or something to fear. Maybe introspection is feared in the same way Nature used to be feared - as something untamed, wild in its musings, and to be avoided or protected against for its unpredictability. Maybe it is perceived as something to avoid, like mental hurricanes and tornadoes and flash floods, something to be dammed up and transformed into usable linear electrical pulses.

          While we first needed skills to develop Nature in order to survive, we now need an increased ability to understand ourselves in order to survive. As an artist I am challenged to embrace this need. I willingly plunge into the arena of the unconscious looking for material which adds to the breadth of self-knowledge, increasing my introspective facility, and expanding the information available to me about our inner being.


          So my distinction from Nature can now be used to help me reach a plateau of activity which cooperates with her and is of mutual service in assuring the survival of both of the earth and humankind. It is one of the continuing tasks of art to provide a fresh view of life and the world in spite of the dominance of repetition - repetitiveness found in Nature, the products of man, and in the repetitive tendencies of history.

          I use introspective tools to pull insights out of the protective anonymity of the unconscious, delivering myself from the oppressive aspects of repetitiveness and offering this release to those who view my work. But insights are also elusive and often defy their own seizing.
          Intuition gives birth to thoughts that resist being named or communicated in language. So I turn to a visual language in order to communicate and record the activity of my mind.
          I explore and re-define the influences on my mind by contemplating Nature on the one hand and my own mental environment on the other. Through the traditions established by Nature I may yearn to depict three-dimensional forms and through the tradition of art history I am challenged to depict new one.