Finding Forms

 

Following in a way the oldest tradition that we know of in what has become known as art, today I followed the forms and shapes of seven river rocks that have always reminded me of animals.  I added watercolor to the stones, following the shapes and teasing out the animals that seem to live in them.

 

In the ancient cave paintings in France and other places, the abstract animal forms were conjured out of the surface undulations of the walls of the caves.  It is believed that Michelangelo, too, studied the pieces of Cararra marble that he used until he could discern the figure that was in the stone before he set to work freeing it.  Freeing the form within has also been the practice of many outsider as well as indigenous artists.