vagabond sky / oil on board / 30" x 24" / 2012
vagabond sky
impressions from behind glass
seen through different windows
wherein I have passed
hours filled with minutes
slip obliquely to the past
sifting ceaselessly
through the hour glass
we can salvage only snapshots
minutes become hours become days become months become years
the passage of time constructs just to be deconstructed
each moment is as separate as each rushing grain of sand
the lives we build so carefully, hearts bursting with love
fall in time so carelessly
borne away as vapour on the air,
running like these raindrops run before me
each one smashing and careening
rivulets now become
streaming and receding from view
impressions from behind glass
seen through different windows
wherein I have passed
hours filled with minutes
slip obliquely to the past
sifting ceaselessly
through the hour glass
we can salvage only snapshots
minutes become hours become days become months become years
the passage of time constructs just to be deconstructed
each moment is as separate as each rushing grain of sand
the lives we build so carefully, hearts bursting with love
fall in time so carelessly
borne away as vapour on the air,
running like these raindrops run before me
each one smashing and careening
rivulets now become
streaming and receding from view
photograph taken from the airplane window while taking off from the Yukon
Vagabond sky is the first in a series of paintings that uses photographs taken while looking out of a window as a loose map for the layout of the work. The intent is not to reproduce the photograph, already an abstraction of reality, but to encourage another interpretation of the original view; here already triply constrained: first by the frame of the windowpane, secondly by the frame of the camera lens, and thirdly by the eye of the photographer. The photograph I used for vagabond sky was taken from an airplane while taking off from Whitehorse in the Yukon. The painting plays up the soft, impressionist quality of the photograph.
