Common Ground
Artist Statement
There is a Greek word, Kairos, which loosely means: to be in the place you were meant to be or where time and destiny meet. I think we spend most of our lives looking for this Place, only to find that its not a particular landscape but a place inside each of us. This body of work, with all its landscapes and figures, speaks less to any specific scene or person and more to the discovery and recognition of this Place in us and how it connects us to others . . . common ground.
Family, friends, strangers I am interested in how we are all linked by touching the same soil, both literally and emotionally. The communication, the connection between people who have grown up together reflects the contours and textures of the places their roots share. Through memories we choose to carry with us or those we cannot forget, we carry this common ground throughout our lives, though we can see the same place very differently. In some way, we all belong to this earth, this common ground and beyond that to the time and people who intersect it with us.
Within my definition of Place is a good bit of symbolism. I have borrowed loosely from the teachings of Native Americans, who instruct that the rhythms and forces of nature are not separate from our lives. Their concept of totems as any natural object, being or animal whose energy we feel closely associated with is one I have generously embraced. Therefore, in my world, animals like the golden dog and the horse represent the emotional side of life. While birds the only animal that travels between heaven and earth represent the soul. Trees are about being centered or grounded while still reaching. The moon is mystery; fireflies are childhood and dragonflies are joy. The simple house form represents peace or safety and the Starbucks cup, slight indulgence, a little pleasure. And the red wagon is the vehicle for whatever we carry forward from our past!
I work with a common ground terra cotta, red earthenware clay. It is my choice because despite all attempts to decorate the surface, it remains, red clay natural, a little raw, a bit unrefined. All of my work is handbuilt, also a nod to enjoying the telling marks of the process. With a background in drawing and painting, my surface work involves layering of slips, stains, underglazes and glaze through the processes of wax resist, texturing, painting, slip trail drawing, and carving. This requires multiple firings.
Deeply inspired by words, particularly the poets Robert Frost, Mary Oliver and e.e. Cummings, my studio walls are covered with ever-changing quotes, song lines and my own musings, which find their way into my work literally and in the titles. Both Klimt and Matisse touch my artists soul, their canvases glow with rich color and light and quiet joy. The elegant, simple lines of Modiglianis figures inform my own figurative work. If my work reflects any of the qualities of these artists, I am humbled.
There is a freedom, serenity, a sense of clarity that comes from being in the natural world. It is where I incubate ideas and work through challenges. The writer Susan Griffin speaks of trees in the following passage; to me it speaks of the Place where time and destiny meet. Our common ground.
The way we stand, you can see we have grown up this way together, out of the same soil, with the same rains, leaning in the same way toward the sun. See how we lean together in the same direction. How the dead limbs of one of us rest in the branches of another. How those branches have grown around the limbs. How the two are inseparable. And if you look you can see the different ways we have taken this place into us.
Beth J. Tarkington
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