“Mariana’s Captive”

Blown in from the East, a clumsy landing. 

Paper

Wet

Wide

Fake blossoming on the surface tension.

Sinking

Lightning flashes in an echo, electric.

Sink the same rate as sediment.

Steal the sea’s eyes.

Mariana’s Captive.

This painting came as a vision of something sinking slowly to the very deepest part of the ocean. Something not heavy, but rather able to be pulled apart by time and weight and sinking. That sinking feeling is where it started. In water, gravity is different. Things sink, but much more slowly and therefore (possibly) deliberately. Why does the water grab hold to every surface differently than air does? I mean, why do we feel it differently? 

If I give you a cup of water, you think, “Okay. Now I have a cup of water.” If I give you a cup of air, you think “Why is she giving me an empty cup?” It’s not empty! It’s full of air. Air is not nothing, but we think of it that way. 

When something is surrounded by air and is falling down, we just think it is falling. But when it is sinking in water, it is still falling, but we think of it more like it is surrounded by the water. Why? 

I believe it has everything to do with how we live with assumptions. We assume things all the time, everyday. It’s good for some things like “I assume my voice will work the same way it did yesterday so I can talk to people.” Or “I assume that if I step on the gas pedal, my car will go.” 

Living with practical assumptions like that makes life easier. But when we go into the zone of assuming things that are questionable, or made up, we are in a different territory and we should question our assumptions so that we can grow and learn.

This piece is about holding onto the assumptions that are real and weighted with truth, and pulling apart, or decomposing the assumptions that are pulling us ever downward into the mysterious depths of our subconscious.