August 8, 2012

Flying with dragonflies

Flying with dragonflies
One stroke, drawn, another.
Flying with dragonflies

Sometimes, in the air, you are tracing lines –
like a conductor, lines drawn and gestured in the molecules of motion.

That line, in the stroke of air, is your imagination — again, like Nabokov’s birds — “Our imagination flies — we are its shadow on the earth.” As we stand and draw in the air — the lines of ideas are postulated, there is talk on the wind — principles are espoused in the gesture, the sound of the wind, whispered. But too, this is, can be, the path of other living things — they fly and turn and wheel and spin in the sunlight, shimmering like the glint of steel — the beauty way.

In drawing the calligraphy of air — the flourishes are the dance of the idea, the sweeping movement of the path of the living — which is an idea, a living form – the flight of the dragonfly. I thought about the power of these ancient insects, the fabulous tracery of their skillful flight — the superior and elegant architecture of their wings — these on brushstrokes, drawn on canvas — drawn with loaded brush, spinning and whirling, spattered — these ink strokes strike their own path of energy.

Flying with dragonfliesFlying with dragonfliesFlying with dragonfliesFlying with dragonfliesFlying with dragonflies

What I believe is that there are allegories between the mind — the conscious and intellectual — and spirited and unbridled imagination — the drawings of ideas and the paths of nature, the wind, the curl of the sea and the flight of the odonata — one grouping of flying insects that has been here on the earth millions of years longer than many.

Isn’t inspiration, truly — to draw in the air?
In-spirare.

Inhale. Exhale.
Spirit.

T. | d e c a t u r i s l a n d s t u d i o s
t i m

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BRANDLOVE:
Girvin strategies of memory +
enchantment = audience engagement

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One Response to Flying with dragonflies

  1. LOVE THIS POST! This totally struck a chord with me. Thanks for writing it. We’re taking a calligraphy course as a studio later this month and am so excited to see what it inspires.

    Cheers!
    Your “sister” studio in Madison
    Kristin Girvin Redman of
    Cricket Design Works

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