During the Covid lockdown, I ran into this animation begun years ago while exploring geometric shapes and mandala imagery. Its creation was a sizable tech challenge for me and at one point I sighed and put it aside. With more time on my hands, I pledged to finish it. This is a tribute to beauty and the many stories held in stone, the bones of the earth, and to poet Charles Simic (1938-2023) who wrote one of my very favorite poems, Stone.
On retreat at the Tassajara Hot Springs, nestled deep into a remote valley in the Ventana Wilderness, I fell in love with newly constructed privacy screens at the bathhouse. They were artistically constructed with basket-woven strips of acid-washed, patinaed metal. I was entranced by the shapes, and colors, and began to see alternate dimensions as I snapped away with my camera. At home, I played with images that piqued my imagination, saturating the colors, in some cases reshaping and building on the various forms to create what I began to call Voyages. It seemed natural to print the resulting images back onto metal, now at home on my garden wall.
My challenge as a photographic artist is to explore and unpack the meaning of beauty and its role as catalyst — growing our capacity to imagine, inspire, create and love the world around us in all its forms. A momentary encounter with beauty has the potential to change your day. An ongoing conversation with beauty, especially in the natural world has the power to change your life. — Gail
