Lindsey Claire Newman, We are still here
Lindsey Claire Newman (she/her)
We are still here, Summer/Fall 2020
Mixed Media; found papers, coffee filter, cyanotype, water based paint, charcoal
16" x 16"
The two stones in this piece represent my child and I, forever balanced in a delicate dance between love and fear, clutching and letting go, pushing away and deeply craving, all highly exacerbated by this past year's events. The top stone, my son, seems to be caught in a breeze, an uncertainty, a quickness, while I, the bottom stone, am weighted and steadfast, and lifting him upwards. While heavy in content and emotion, the pace change of 2020 has forced a solidification of my values and priorities, which in turn has strengthened the ways in which I lift my son.
In this painting, the landscape is formed by the cycles of nature, in particular, the phases of the moon. My son and I forged a deeper relationship with nature during this past year, as we had moved away from the city in the beginning of March. We had the pleasure of discovering the changes in the natural world around us as our social networks shut down and we found it difficult to make new connections in a new location. Hiking and beach walks became the usual and time drifted as we collected, observed and discovered.
In the slowing down of this time, I began to experiment more loosely with materials, which led to using found objects and the creation of cyanotype prints. The cyanotype used in this piece was created with a round coffee filter, and still-wet coffee grounds, spilled onto the page. In this piece the simple everyday act of making coffee came to mimic the magic of the night sky.
@llover7