The Pond Series: writing
The Pond series:
For the past six years I have been traveling to and from Toronto island, sitting on its beaches, biking through its stands of old stately trees and painting through its seasons of lushness and sparseness.
Through all of this, the waters of the lake, the lagoons and ponds have gradually made themselves present in my psyche and artistic process. Meditating on the beach in the early morning, sitting by trout pond in the late afternoon and watching the reflection of the city lights in the lagoons as I bike home at night have created a desire to explore the nature of water in my painting.
The original attraction to water was the beauty of it’s shimmering surface, how the reflections it held were constantly forming and dissolving, watching the light it contained in quiet moments and experiencing the energy moving through the it in movement and in stillness.
As I pursued the elusive lightness and fullness of water the pond west of my studio became more and more the focus of this work. Here there was the beauty of the reflected sky, clouds and trees, the floating lily pads, jumping fish and the mystery of what lay beneath.
Soon after this series began I was painting in Mexico and was surprised to find ponds there that were beautiful, and richly complex in their design. These ponds were full of life, colour, fish and plants and set in a remarkable tropical garden. They were layered.
full of surface reflections and penetrating shafts of light, delicate moving surfaces and solid submerged constructions.
In painting these ponds I began to know more about why I had been drawn to work with water in the first place.
It was becoming clear to me that water could be a metaphor for many things.
One of these is consciousness. There is a book called ‘A Still Forest Pool’ by the late Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah. In it he talks about the process of meditation and the value of stilling the mind. He uses the example of having a glass of lake water sitting on a table. When taken directly from the lake it appears murky but when left to settle it becomes clear, the silt and debris falling to the bottom of the glass. This he says is the same as having the mind always active and filled with thoughts. It’s only when it has a chance to be still and quiet does it become clear, empty and spacious. In this place it’s possible to be the witness to our busy mind. It’s possible to experience the true nature of mind. In this stillness, as in a calm pool, the mind has clarity and awareness of what is passing through it, of what is arising and wisdom can be present.
When sitting on the dock by trout pond I could experience this and see that
the surface movement on the water was like our thoughts, the moods, emotions of the mind. It was part of the water but not everything. There was a deeper place of stillness and calm that existed below and wasn’t affected by the waves and surface fluctuations.
The lily pads floating on the surface of the water, the fish darting through it, the green leaves and tangled stems under the surface can all be seen as objects that are constantly arising in our consciousness. They grab our attention and move us here and there sometimes into states of happiness and sometimes into states of despair. They are tendencies towards becoming this or that driven by the power of our thoughts.
Like the various life forms living in the pond, they are in our awareness but are not the essence of our true state. The water holds it’s fish, plants and other life forms but does not become them. They exist in the water but are not the water. The water as a metaphor for clear consciousness is holding awareness of these objects but not becoming them. Our mind produces our thoughts but isn’t our thoughts. We can think that our thoughts and moods are the truth of who we are but there is within us a calm, still awareness that is not changed by these moods and thoughts, that can experience them, then let them go as clouds moving across the sky or reflected on the waters surface.
In these paintings the water is filled with sky, clouds, trees reflected on its surface. It is full of movement, colours and forms, reflections that are constantly changing. Trees, sky, clouds are reflected not ‘real’, they have no inherent reality and are in juxtaposition to ‘real’ paddies, squares, flowers and fish. As with our minds we are constantly creating our reality based on what we think is real and unreal. Our deeper truth, the clear, natural state of consciousness holds both and identifies with neither.
Water acts as a mirror reflecting only what is in front of it holding no “form” of its own. The clear consciousness of mind (the true nature of mind) is similar as it reflects what it experiences, being a mirror to the world, not attaching to anything. The wisdom teachings from many traditions tell us that everything in our perceived world is illusion. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
It is the emptiness of water that holds the forms of life that grow within it. It is both form and formlessness.
Becoming attached to thoughts and conditions being constant we can experience suffering when these conditions change, as everything always does. Our sense of self is threatened and our ego attempts to hold on to what it believes to be real. As experienced in reflections in the ponds, there is no inherent reality only that which we perceive to be real. With everything in constant change the deep stillness within can be our anchor.
In many of the paintings there is both reflected light and light that is penetrating the water. This can be a metaphor for the light of our awareness cutting through our tendencies to create illusions, to become attached to our changing thoughts. It is letting the light of our inner wisdom penetrate the depths of our being.
We exist on many levels and dimensions. Knowing our ‘visible’ surface selves is only a fraction of who we are.
The ponds contain water lilies that have begun life in the murky soil at the bottom of the pond. As they rest on the surface of the water and catch the light in their petals they can be seen like the lotus flower in eastern philosophy. A symbol of the individuals journey from the darkness of ignorance to the light of awareness.
As I continue this series and learn more about the essence and mystery of water
I see how the ponds are metaphors for acknowledging complexity, appreciating beauty and creating and maintaining balance.
For the past six years I have been traveling to and from Toronto island, sitting on its beaches, biking through its stands of old stately trees and painting through its seasons of lushness and sparseness.
Through all of this, the waters of the lake, the lagoons and ponds have gradually made themselves present in my psyche and artistic process. Meditating on the beach in the early morning, sitting by trout pond in the late afternoon and watching the reflection of the city lights in the lagoons as I bike home at night have created a desire to explore the nature of water in my painting.
The original attraction to water was the beauty of it’s shimmering surface, how the reflections it held were constantly forming and dissolving, watching the light it contained in quiet moments and experiencing the energy moving through the it in movement and in stillness.
As I pursued the elusive lightness and fullness of water the pond west of my studio became more and more the focus of this work. Here there was the beauty of the reflected sky, clouds and trees, the floating lily pads, jumping fish and the mystery of what lay beneath.
Soon after this series began I was painting in Mexico and was surprised to find ponds there that were beautiful, and richly complex in their design. These ponds were full of life, colour, fish and plants and set in a remarkable tropical garden. They were layered.
full of surface reflections and penetrating shafts of light, delicate moving surfaces and solid submerged constructions.
In painting these ponds I began to know more about why I had been drawn to work with water in the first place.
It was becoming clear to me that water could be a metaphor for many things.
One of these is consciousness. There is a book called ‘A Still Forest Pool’ by the late Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah. In it he talks about the process of meditation and the value of stilling the mind. He uses the example of having a glass of lake water sitting on a table. When taken directly from the lake it appears murky but when left to settle it becomes clear, the silt and debris falling to the bottom of the glass. This he says is the same as having the mind always active and filled with thoughts. It’s only when it has a chance to be still and quiet does it become clear, empty and spacious. In this place it’s possible to be the witness to our busy mind. It’s possible to experience the true nature of mind. In this stillness, as in a calm pool, the mind has clarity and awareness of what is passing through it, of what is arising and wisdom can be present.
When sitting on the dock by trout pond I could experience this and see that
the surface movement on the water was like our thoughts, the moods, emotions of the mind. It was part of the water but not everything. There was a deeper place of stillness and calm that existed below and wasn’t affected by the waves and surface fluctuations.
The lily pads floating on the surface of the water, the fish darting through it, the green leaves and tangled stems under the surface can all be seen as objects that are constantly arising in our consciousness. They grab our attention and move us here and there sometimes into states of happiness and sometimes into states of despair. They are tendencies towards becoming this or that driven by the power of our thoughts.
Like the various life forms living in the pond, they are in our awareness but are not the essence of our true state. The water holds it’s fish, plants and other life forms but does not become them. They exist in the water but are not the water. The water as a metaphor for clear consciousness is holding awareness of these objects but not becoming them. Our mind produces our thoughts but isn’t our thoughts. We can think that our thoughts and moods are the truth of who we are but there is within us a calm, still awareness that is not changed by these moods and thoughts, that can experience them, then let them go as clouds moving across the sky or reflected on the waters surface.
In these paintings the water is filled with sky, clouds, trees reflected on its surface. It is full of movement, colours and forms, reflections that are constantly changing. Trees, sky, clouds are reflected not ‘real’, they have no inherent reality and are in juxtaposition to ‘real’ paddies, squares, flowers and fish. As with our minds we are constantly creating our reality based on what we think is real and unreal. Our deeper truth, the clear, natural state of consciousness holds both and identifies with neither.
Water acts as a mirror reflecting only what is in front of it holding no “form” of its own. The clear consciousness of mind (the true nature of mind) is similar as it reflects what it experiences, being a mirror to the world, not attaching to anything. The wisdom teachings from many traditions tell us that everything in our perceived world is illusion. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
It is the emptiness of water that holds the forms of life that grow within it. It is both form and formlessness.
Becoming attached to thoughts and conditions being constant we can experience suffering when these conditions change, as everything always does. Our sense of self is threatened and our ego attempts to hold on to what it believes to be real. As experienced in reflections in the ponds, there is no inherent reality only that which we perceive to be real. With everything in constant change the deep stillness within can be our anchor.
In many of the paintings there is both reflected light and light that is penetrating the water. This can be a metaphor for the light of our awareness cutting through our tendencies to create illusions, to become attached to our changing thoughts. It is letting the light of our inner wisdom penetrate the depths of our being.
We exist on many levels and dimensions. Knowing our ‘visible’ surface selves is only a fraction of who we are.
The ponds contain water lilies that have begun life in the murky soil at the bottom of the pond. As they rest on the surface of the water and catch the light in their petals they can be seen like the lotus flower in eastern philosophy. A symbol of the individuals journey from the darkness of ignorance to the light of awareness.
As I continue this series and learn more about the essence and mystery of water
I see how the ponds are metaphors for acknowledging complexity, appreciating beauty and creating and maintaining balance.
Mystery 2, 2007, oil on canvas, 20" x 30"
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Mexican Pond, 2007, oil on board
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