I've been engaging the idea of 'Trails' for many years. It began when I was spending time in Mexico on a stretch of coast that had very narrow beaches. I did several attempts at working with the limitations of the location- the way that the dynamics of the water and land created alternating areas of high and low sand with the low having more space, staying wetter longer, and the high having less area wet, which dried out more quickly. It wasn't until I came across a rendering of the Aztec snake god that I found a way to meaningfully engage the beach, accessing the various changes in width of beach to work with with this undulating version of an Aztec snake
That started a journey of exploring the idea of a long, winding path. In this version I deconstructed the winding trail as though the canvas had been fractured and rearranged.
Here I was exploring the 'Glyphs' series in which I developed a set of characters that acted as a sort of alphabet, which evolved into a set of possible arrangements using a 5x5 grid. I placed these design symbols into the trail concept as a long, winding path of glyphs in which the top and bottom mirrored. This one was done on a narrow strip of land that was the tail end of a long finger of the edge of a bay along the Eastern side of Cape Cod. I should tell that story some time.
Cars and dogs are my nemeses. Dogs rip up the beach when they run, slide out, and dig. And cars leave unbroken, parallel lines that look like unmistakeable encroachment of modernity. I've occasionally had to run to head off an oncoming park ranger or lifeguard. Once I arrived at a perfect, small cove just as a ranger truck rounded the bend and drove loops on it.
However, upon closer inspection the tracks have a compelling quality. The treads of the tires left behind patterned grooves in the sand that had a compelling quality. I spent a bit of time deconstructing the patterns from various models of tire. I tried doing a piece in which there were treads of different patterns crossing the beach. If I can locate it, I will place it here.
[photo of 'Treads']
While traveling in New Zealand, if the beach were accessible by car then there would be tire tracks on it. That was sometimes disappointing. I seemed like the tracks were symbols of humanity and it occurred to me humanity had left its tracks all over the world. There are few places that humans have not left tracks of their presence- even if indirectly.
Well, no need to dwell on the negative aspect of that thought. Where it did send me was thinking about was how every culture leaves its unique imprint upon its environment. I thought about the tire tracks as anexpression of the local culture, which had me think about traditional art motifs as being the patterns within the track. This led to many explorations of the concept including this one while in NZ, an experience that also warrants writing about.
After returning home I did another version of a Maori-inspired trail, which I am quite pleased with. For scale, you can see me about the center as a black dot.
This one was a step beyond the discrete glyph components. I used the grid upon which the glyphs formed to create more complex arrangements.
In this one of a glyph trail I incorporated the varying line thickness of a piece I call Ribbons (a whole other line of development) to give the feeling that the line was undulating in multiple dimensions)
