Rough Sketch Beginning

When I was younger at some point it occurred to me that art was a tableau into meanings. Interior and personal, emotive, so that I found as much from a Rothko as a Rembrandt. And at that point, I recognized that landscapes, grand, plateaus of rich telling, these scapes of my own escaping were something as valid for me wandering museums as looking at the inner world of a Pollock. And both were a way to see, for my heart and mind. It happened I was developing my sensibilities in art and in creating, understanding better the role of audience, gaining appreciation for the making,following the seed in an idea. It was a time in my life where I bounced into Washington DC a number of times to welcome the East Wing and to visit the great American Landscape portraits....all good times to be sure. This is a book that is looking at the "idea" or the inspiration" of an artwork. It is titled "rough sketch" but it's an academic use of the term, for this is not at all rough work. It's extremely well drawn traditional gorgeous sketch. It's also a beautiful poem put to pieces in this drafting, as if an artist's sketchbook is finally assembled into a fantastic multiple page pull out in the back of the book, revealing in its intensity the final ah ha of bringing thought to a "life." The tone of Berry's poem is one of finding a language to frame the experience of the beauty in nature, it's reflective, pooling, dignified, as grand as the world around us...Listen as it speaks of what has been "seen" in this artist's sketch pad..." I saw woodland branches the many hands washing the wind, I saw birdsong color streaks and circle pieces of the air." it continues introducing the elements of the work. I've always enjoyed this book using it along with other pieces in the telling of the story of our landscapes with my young class children, in seeing the mountains, the wilderness, in appreciation of places man has not claimed and cemented entirely, in an expression of the freedom of that and the freedom of creation. It has been quite a good resource in talking about how an artist might work, where creative ideas can come from. It is tied to representation, to image and to here, yes. So it serves a part of what we address in artistic work, especially with the child. My first grade makes several landscapes in a normal year, although not so this last year, when I was tending other issues, and this serves as a help along that way. I would definitely get this for someone, anyone with a love of nature, hiking, mind trails, poetry. In fact in combination with a book I love by Edward Leuders, Clam Lake Papers: A Winter in the North Woods I think it would make a remarkable present for someone that would like for awhile to withdraw from the hustle of life here and journey to a profound "there."