RavenCircle Creations
Art for openning doorways of perception
BIODIVERSITY
an artist's hand made book
My thoughts are often lost in the beauty of the natural world. This is especially true when I work with watercolor. The natural images which rise out of the chaos of the water, ink and paper interacting make me realize that all art, all of it, is a shadow of the natural world. In this work, an artist book with a drum-leaf binding, I worked on the ideas which, linked with salt, created the electricity of life.
The cover is sand from the beach where in the verge between two distinct worlds, the water and the land, life arose, the pulse of which was provided by our grandmother the moon. Out of the abyss of water the simplest of forms created the eventual emergence of life itself.
The title page is marked with the glyphs which are characteristic of most of my current work. The glyphs demand reading, but at the same time are a mystery, untranslateable. My intent is to pull the reader into a world where their own intuitive interpretations of the symbols cause a new perception to arise. While it is true that some of these are similar to chinese and asian characters, they are simply cross informed from that source.... not the source themselves. But at the same time, each mark is a picture. The word-concept "biodiversity" is the root behing these marks.
The table of contents is rare for me. But in this case, I will lable each page below as I show the work. Here is what is written at the bottom:
This delicate story is on of the first chemestry mixing in the fertile ground of the primordial ooze. where the only instinct was towards separation and survival, these pictures form a close up look at the microscopic rowld of what may have been occuring at the edges of our world - places like tide pools and shores, volcanic vents or simple drops of dew where none can guess at the beauty of the first raw moment of life.
Folio One - Growth
Through the will of ancient creation thesource of green plants, givers of life, rooted into what would come to be.
Folio Two - Explosion
Ground moved with such a rage as out from it pouredout an unknown substance.
Folio Three - Flow
As the dark mass moved on the land, all myriad of spardk and forms burst forth.
Folio Four - Projection
Into this mass shot a great root sparkling with life.
Folio Five - Diversity
Threads turned inward to create seeds of future life and living forms.
Folio Six - Separation
Breaking off from the source, many forms and shapes took separate ways.
Folio Seven - Sustinance
Each form started a great battle for the needs of life and survival.
Fiolio Eight - Beauty
Occasionally a burst of color would shine forth as each creature enticed its own kind.
This artist book is available for purchase at Arches Bookstore, Moab, UT. Please contact Andy Nettle at archesbookcompany@citlink.net.