Jiji Saunders
For me, the visual world, and especially the natural world, glows vividly. Colors, shapes, and textures stop me in my tracks. I pause to watch the sky or the sea or the trees shiver in the wind. I began painting as a child mostly because I needed to record these moments (and also because there were artists in my family). After attending the Art Students League of Denver, I suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned oil painting and immersed myself in encaustic painting. Wax is my medium because it has a luminescence and texture that more accurately captures the moving elements of nature. I paint in my studio on Vashon Island.
Crossed Wires
Look up! We humans live in the ten-foot zone between our solidly planted feet and the air above our heads. Occasionally we glance skyward to see the straight shot of a crow, but even crows don't fly high. The atmosphere rises 300,00 feet, and is usable for us until about 20,000. Yet here we are in our ten-foot zone.
It was the city that first called me to look up. In the city all sorts of things are happening above. Planes fly at various altitudes, contrails grid the sky. And the power lines! You have no idea how many lines run above your head (and below your feet) to supply the city and make order in the sky. Electrical lines, phone lines, lines to dangle traffic lights, lines to power buses -- in some places the lines are so dense that they form a roof above us.
My paintings explore the contradiction between pristine sky and the grid of human consumption, bringing us power, data, transportation, and communication. It pays homage to the beauty those crossed wires outline and asks questions about the order they give us. Architect Richard Rogers sums this up, saying:
"When you are faced with a piece of ground [or sky] where there are few limiting constraints . . . it's sort of a white piece of paper, the first thing you do is start putting a grid on it, because you want to own it and a grid is a way of owning it, a way of getting order." While we cannot own it, the crossed wires help us comprehend the sky.
For me, the visual world, and especially the natural world, glows vividly. Colors, shapes, and textures stop me in my tracks. I pause to watch the sky or the sea or the trees shiver in the wind. I began painting as a child mostly because I needed to record these moments (and also because there were artists in my family). After attending the Art Students League of Denver, I suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned oil painting and immersed myself in encaustic painting. Wax is my medium because it has a luminescence and texture that more accurately captures the moving elements of nature. I paint in my studio on Vashon Island.
Crossed Wires
Look up! We humans live in the ten-foot zone between our solidly planted feet and the air above our heads. Occasionally we glance skyward to see the straight shot of a crow, but even crows don't fly high. The atmosphere rises 300,00 feet, and is usable for us until about 20,000. Yet here we are in our ten-foot zone.
It was the city that first called me to look up. In the city all sorts of things are happening above. Planes fly at various altitudes, contrails grid the sky. And the power lines! You have no idea how many lines run above your head (and below your feet) to supply the city and make order in the sky. Electrical lines, phone lines, lines to dangle traffic lights, lines to power buses -- in some places the lines are so dense that they form a roof above us.
My paintings explore the contradiction between pristine sky and the grid of human consumption, bringing us power, data, transportation, and communication. It pays homage to the beauty those crossed wires outline and asks questions about the order they give us. Architect Richard Rogers sums this up, saying:
"When you are faced with a piece of ground [or sky] where there are few limiting constraints . . . it's sort of a white piece of paper, the first thing you do is start putting a grid on it, because you want to own it and a grid is a way of owning it, a way of getting order." While we cannot own it, the crossed wires help us comprehend the sky.
