The degree of separation is as small as six steps, or so it has been said. Six degrees of separation is the idea that all living things and everything else are six or fewer steps away from each other. Tonight I was in the mood to be horizontal after dark. In the past I was often driven to just lie on the top of the bed - fully clothed before anyone asks. Sometimes I lie there just thinking, sometimes I may create shadows on the ceiling, or as tonight with an improving book to hand. (Between Stone And Sky by Whitney Brown if you wish to know). That work had been the planned subject for today. My topic of thought - a book unopened. Most reviews are of a book read. But as I write this, that book, the memoirs of an American woman who fell in love with dry-stone walling in Wales, remains unread still. And the reason is I spied from my angle of horizon a view which captivated me. Like an old master, this view of the bedside table provided a composition which had I planned it could not be so perfect.. The happen-chance collection of things, each unconnected to each other, but each connected somehow to the humble home. I loved the composition. Like an old master still life painting. It made me ponder on the image with a bear. Reminding me of casual glimpses of old masters in print I'm sure, still life with a teddy bear. I looked that up.
Ten minutes of inputting 'oil paintings and teddy bears' caused me to stumble across an artist, Sandra Busby. Until tonight the name Sandra Busby lay unrecognised in my life. I read her biography prominent on her website. And there, there was the bear. I quote.
"Sandra’s first painting was a teddy bear still life. It was mainly about the light and the dark, and she went back every day to keep working on it. It took probably 40 hours, and was very valuable learning time. This then turned into a series of 8 bears and each one got a bit better than the last. It was lovely for Sandra to look at the improvement between the first and the last bear painting "
Deeper within the website, lies a series of podcasts. Episode 11 if you are inclined to listen recalls Sandra's progression in her 30's into a career in art, still life art, a seductive recreation of an everyday objectification in paint. Recent work has included a single whisky glass in the dark shadows of a distant light source. I was bewitched by her technique. The podcast continues with Sandra recalling how, as largely a self taught artist, she garnered inspiration for her first painting through the works of old masters, which ultimately led to her drive to paint a teddy bear in that style. Eight teddy bear paintings followed.
I was back in my room. The degree of separation is as small as six steps so it is said. It possibly was tonight if you count my clicking through the internet. My unread book had not connected with me at all, yet, and yet that book of a woman inspired to a different direction in life, connected me to an artist I never knew. An artist who was inspired to follow a different path in life. And there I lay, separated from both in my room, yet in ten short minutes a new world opened up, which until then I'd been ignorant of. All from a single image of happenstance connection at the click of the camera shutter.
http://www.sandrabusbyart.com/
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