Ruminating
8x10x.75"
Pencil Crayon, Gesso and Oil Pastel on Plywood Panel
2026
 
I hung some two small personal pieces where my eye lands in bed - a terra cotta paw print of my old dog, a sprig of lavender framed in stained glass - tiny objects that hold time in the way only grief and gratitude can: fixed, and yet somehow still moving. They are my "drishti" as I fall asleep.
 
Whenever I see a puddle, it feels like a little rumination of the world - so ethereal it almost doesn't belong, yet it pulls me in; mesmerized by its layers, reflections of an entire sky, and endless motion, or impossibly, none at all. 
 
Working from home for years, the ordinary anchors of days and seasons have loosened their grip on me. I drift a lot. I lose the thread of what week it is, what month, what my day looks like. What's left is a current of thought that pulls like a small vortex in a creek, beautiful and slightly dangerous.
 
Ruminating emerged from that place. Water reflects without understanding what it holds. It takes in sky, shadow, the shape of a passing thing, and returns it distorted, luminous, unresolved. The painting rarely tells me which way it will sit until it is finished. Neither do the thoughts. 
 
We perform the structure of time - calendars, routines, the architecture of a day - but underneath, we are something far less organized and far more vast. Matter, arranging itself. We are briefly conscious of the arrangement, and act civilized in our chaos, naturally.