I am getting very close to finishing this piece! It's made up of twelve drawings that I began working on years ago, literally, as a daily, mostly morning meditation, usually for short periods, fifteen to thirty minutes at a time. I sit my body down and through 'coloring', still my mind. (As a child I loved to color.) The present moment in time slowly comes into focus. Thoughts and feelings gradually inhabit a quiet space and a meaningful direction in harmony with the day - the present - is sensed, intuited, apprehended.
Some 'keys' to the drawings:
1 ring = 12 months
2 rings = 24 months
3 rings = 36 months
4 rings = 48 months
5 rings = 60 months
6 rings = 72 months
7 rings = 84 months
8 rings = 96 months
9 rings = 108 months
10 rings = 120 months
11 rings = 132 months
12 rings = 144 months
I chose a seemingly more random order for the drawings (than the list above) because the composition looks more spatially dynamic, kind of like pulsating stars. And it also seems more similar to the way I actually experience the simultaneity of time, whether it's thinking about the past, being in the present or anticipating the future. (It's also helped me to better understand and appreciate Pythagoras who theorized that the essence of the universe is found in numbers.)
In my mind, the months best correspond with the colors below, according to temperature.
January - Blue
February - Blue-Green
March - Green
April - Yellow-Green
May - Yellow
June - Yellow-Orange
July - Orange
August - Red-Orange
September - Red
October - Red-Purple
November - Purple
December - Blue-Purple
I recall beginning the very first one of these drawings in order to work out the colors of the months and seasons for another ongoing (and ongoing!) project I began in 1997 - 'Kinder Quilts'. These began out of the impulse to document my kids' growth and development and to 'map' the unfolding of their lives, while teaching them "Out of Many, One" - a 'rainbow color theory' of race and identity.
It's not apparent in the photograph of the drawings (back at the very top) but each image is 'framed' with layers of black Arches paper....
