Nancy Treherne Craig
Stalking The Gaps
Exhibition:
Friday, May 2, 2008-Saturday, May 31, 2008
Artist’s Statement
I am concerned with the possibility of routes for our universal journey, in particular those which provide accessibility to the Sacred. I happen to see and feel those routes and paths and ways most clearly in the natural world and so express them visually in landscape.
The works are based on actual sites; in the beginning I make visits, site drawings and photographs, and start from those references. As I work, each piece grows beyond the sketches and references, morphing in response to both my expressive and formal concerns. The finished piece is seldom quite what I intended; I just keep trying.
Please contact the gallery concerning availability of works from past exhibits.
1.
From Yard Looking South
2003, 11 x 11, watercolor crayon
525.00 (sold)
2.
Along Woods
2008, 32 x 32”, acrylic on linen
2,500.00
3.
Curved Road
2007, 40 x 52”, acrylic on canvas
3,200.00 (sold)
4.
Black Willow Path
2005, 36 x 34”, acrylic on canvas
2,500.00
5.
2Ways
2008, diptych: 42 x 32” each,
acrylic on canvas
4,000.00
6.
Trace
2006, 35 x 36”, acrylic on canvas
2,000.00 (sold)
7.
Late Road
2006, 48 x 38, acrylic on canvas
3,000.00
8.
Ladder
2008, 43 x 36”, acrylic on canvas
2,700.00
9.
Hyacinths in the Vines
2004, 10 x 13.5”, watercolor crayon
525.00 (sold)
10.
Phillips Vineyards
2003, 10 x 16”, watercolor crayon
525.00 (sold)
11.
Crossing
2007, 40 x 35”, acrylic on canvas
3,000.00
12.
At Knox Farm
2003, 13 x 10”, watercolor crayon
525.00 (sold)
13.
Sager Creek
2004, 10 x 13.5”, watercolor crayon
525.00
14.
Behind the Barn
2001, 10 x 13.5”, watercolor crayon
525.00
15.
Tannersville
2001, 10 x 13.5”, watercolor crayon
525.00
16.
Bright Cold
2006, 52 x 40”, acrylic on canvas
3,800.00
Limited edition prints are available of this painting.
17.
Grass Track
2004, 48 x 60”, acrylic on canvas
3,500.00
Thomas Merton wrote, “There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.
Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have ‘not gone up into the gaps.” The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit’s one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock – more than a maple – a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, the tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.
Annie Dillard – Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
