Hawk High.

I found this picture in a dust covered discard pile in my studio. I have noticed that I often select the images that challenge me most to be at that hawk high place where dreams coalesce into form. Obviously, I had passed this one by.

Ink painting is eminently suited for this challenge because of the mind-set required. If what I create is going to work at all, I have to both leap off a cliff with abandon and yet remain perfectly still. The satisfactions, like the image, are subtle, interior and fulfilling.

I do understand though, why this picture was at first discarded. Its generalized tones of grey are not well defined in themselves and the symbolic bird shapes have been cut in with a razor with another sheet of rice paper placed behind. Once discarded as a failure, I now see with fresh eyes that it is the tension between the hard cut edges and the soft inky textures that really speaks to me. How often do we all dismiss as mistakes those thoughts and images that push our own limits, or we fear might not be acceptable to those around us, rather than simply welcoming them as valuable ideas pointing in directions of promise.

The sea, a wooded hillside, the strong winds and cloud layers of high places and the arrow flight of hawks are a message for me to always listen to the whispered dreams of new things striving to be born.


"And I still don`t know if I am a falcon,
Or a storm, or a great song."
Rainer Maria Rilke /1899
"I live my life."