From A Distance No. 3: The Floating

Pen and ink contemporary fine art by Doug Ashby.

Slowly we unfurl

As lotus flowers

'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick

Just to see what if

Just to see what is

-Radiohead, Lotus Flower

To see what if. To see what is… Do you have dreams that persist over decades? Dreams that you know deep down inside can, and will come true, when the time is finally right? I would think that certainly you do as it is an all to human desire. One that drives so much of our attention and emotion. The above artwork is very much representative of an ongoing dream. For I wish to float effortlessly within an atmosphere that embodies beauty and calm simultaneoulsy. I fully understand though that this dream, this desire, is unattainable in the grand scheme. However to find these elusive moments, even in fleeting glimpses, would be a dance with the divine.

This artwork was created in early 2012. It began a series of floral works where I was including the heavenly spheres. The hope is to create a feeling of an ethereal meditation that leaves one contemplative as well as serene. While it is not a lotus flower, per the related song lyrics, I feel that the hibiscus gives way to the slow unfurling as it moves through its circadian rhythms. At the time I was fascinated with the biological clock that flowers possess that allow them to open and close with the rising and setting of the sun. A process I had documented in a set of three artworks based on Iris flowers, perhaps the focus of a future “from a distance” post. Nevertheless flowers have been integral to my work since I began. There is an endless symphony of beauty to turn towards for inspiration and I know they will continue to occupy a large part of my future portfolio. 

Turning my attention to the timeframe in which I created this artwork. I had been teaching for just over a decade and was at that moment beginning to understand more deeply what my role was, my identity if you will, as a teacher. This was the result of my earliest students coming back into my life and relaying to me their feelings of their experience in my classroom. What I discovered was that my strength as a teacher did not lie in what I was teaching, but my students' recognition that I was an artist above all, and that my passion for art was what opened the doorway. A doorway to build lasting and meaningful relationships with them. So I began to lean more heavily into that. I was striving to produce work in front of them that embodied what it meant to live as, and be, an artist.

Of course then I could use the art I was creating to directly teach them about the elements and principles of design. How the organic and geometric could play off each other in ways that created a visual tension that caused the viewer to seek a resolution of that and would keep them engaged further. How the contrast of light and dark values could be leveraged for the same and how negative space was just as important as positive. What I had yet to discover though, as the itch was just starting to merge, was that deep down teaching was not nearly as satisfying internally as was the act of creating art. I had yet to understand that teaching, in the long run, for me was simply a tool I needed to use to become an artist. So many people have tried to tell me that one can be both, and perhaps that is true for others, but it simply is not for me. I wanted to ask for the moon to be on a stick. I wanted to ask for the life solely of, and as, an artist. Alas I had to be patient for another fourteen years. I had to unfurl slowly.

At last the time has come for me, and it will be a new process that also will unfurl slowly. If there is one thing I have discovered over the last twenty years is that the future is certainly unknown. All we can do is step into it without fear. Last Friday was my last day ever as a public school educator. The emotions I felt that day, and the many leading up to that moment, were truly like a ride on the wildest roller coaster ever built. Despite that I know that what I am doing is the only true path forward I can walk at this moment in time. There may come a day when the artwork I created that day will be the subject of a “from a distance” post. Our lives do move forward, and in many respects only forward, however reflection on where we came from and the paths we walked is valuable work and helps us prepare for the vast uncertainty we must coexist with. In this artwork I see the direction, I also see the limitations of where I was at that moment. 

The hibiscus flower may seem eternal in and off itself. If we simply look up and outward, training our perception and presence in that direction, we will see many of them. We will see the beauty they possess as they live out their own lives and fulfill their duty. It’s remarkable. When I first observed the circadian patterns of flowers, the hibiscus included, my personal frame of reference advanced. I needed to document it as an artist does. I needed to create something that could help another open up their own presence and perception just a bit more. That is truly why I create art. It’s very much in line with Redon’s ideas on expansion.  An expansion not just for myself but for those who come into contact with my work. 

All I can hope for in an uncertain future is the time to expand further into this life as an artist more fully. 

I was an art teacher, now I am an artist.

Thanks,

Doug