At this point in our journey—in real life—Nashville, was on the horizon to visit with friend Dana Ryan Perez, I already wrote that post, so to the next city. But not before we lay our eyes on Dana's sense of colour.
© 2017 Dana Ryan Perez, what a wonderful spot to sit and relax, Clyde seems to think so.
We took a few days off from traveling and camped in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park which straddles the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. The sprawling landscape encompasses lush forests and an abundance of Mimosa trees still in bloom. The view and greenery were refreshing after crossing Kansas, and Oklahoma, but the forest brought unbearable dampness. Dry! Dry! Dry! is the reason we enjoyed the West so much.
Mimosa Tree
The park encompasses 816.28 square miles (2,114.15 km2), making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. We entered the main park entrance located just East of the town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
I’m still searching for moments in life. How do other artists see these moments and create from them?
If you love mountains for what they represent for you, you will love Guy Laramée’s carved book landscape entitled El amor for las montanas.
A Mexican artist friend of Guy summed up his long-standing love affair with the landscape with El amor por las montañas nos curara—Our love for mountains will heal us.
© 2012 Guy Laramée, El amor por las montañas nos curara. Carved Litré dictionary, inks. 43 x 14 x 27cm (15 x7 x11 inches)
© 2012 Guy Laramée, El amor por las montañas nos curara.
Heal us of what?
Of over thinking?
Of our obsession with knowledge?
Of greed?
In fact, it doesn’t matter. Once recovered from a health issue, the only thing you can say is “sickness is over”. Health is like love. Try to describe it and you’re out of it.
© 2012 Guy Laramée, El amor por las montañas nos curara.
© 2012 Guy Laramée, El amor por las montañas nos curara, detail.
The 13th-century Zen master Dogen was going more or less in the same direction when he said: Although it is said mountains belong to the country, they actually belong to those who love them.
© 2106 Guy Laramée, TIBETAN CHINESE, altered Tibetan-Chinese dictionary, inks, pigments 15,25 x10,15 x 20(h) cm
Now tell me, do mountains belong to mountain lovers or is it the opposite, mountain lovers belong to mountains? What does “belong” mean, when we are uncertain that we own our own bodies? Is it that we actually belong to “all this”, to “life”? When you feel most alive, don’t you feel that “something” bigger than you runs in your veins? My work is about making us feel more alive. It is about losing yourself in the landscape and paradoxically, finding out you are the source of it all.
Haiku translator, poet, and writer Robert Blyth went in the same direction when he wrote: The mind is seen in the stone.
I would like my art to allow you to you see yourself in a stone. Because ultimately, we are not in the world, the world is in us.
Get inspired by finding more moments to express.