Sight Unseen

"It is through the power of observation, the gifts of eye and ear, of tongue and nose and finger, that a place first rises up in our mind; afterwards it is memory that carries the place, that allows it to grow in depth and complexity."  - Barry Lopez, The American Geographies

Sight Unseen has grown out of my years of observing the shapes, scents, sounds and rhythms of a small cow farm at a rural crossroads in coastal northwest Washington. Rambling through the pastures that nestle between pond and forest, sea and sky, I see and am seen by the animals that live there: tree frogs, ravens, eagles, and coyotes, and especially cows. As a white-faced cow snorts and peers at me over tall green nettles, an eagle glides overhead and a surprised coyote turns, disappearing into tangled snowberry and rose. Moved by the life spirit of this rural microcosm, I sit down on the ground and set up my easel to paint.

At the heart of my work in Sight Unseen is the painting, “Sustenance." The viewer is held by the eyes of a young calf, gazing out as it suckles against the sturdy belly of his life-giving mother, whose own expression is one of mammalian maternal contentment. Melville describes a similar image,

"...As human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence; - even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us..."

Looking into the eyes of the creatures with which we share the earth, we recognize and remember our common life force. When we blindly hurry by the animals and plants of small special places, we lose an ancient connection and sustenance. Not seeing these places is ultimately how we are forgetting and losing them.

My work in Sight Unseen is my effort to see, to remember, and to hold sacred.

 

Karen Hackenberg
Fountainhead Gallery
October, 2005