The Great Spine of Rock I and II

The Great Spine of Rock I

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"The Great Spine of Rock I" - oil on canvas, 15 x 30 x .75 inches.  
​"The Great Spine of Rock II"- oil on canvas, 10 x 30 x 1.5 inches.  These are unframed but ready to hang (click on the images to purchase) 

​The great spine of rock holds diverse forests, dreamy meadows, skeins of streams, radiant lakes, and rare glaciers. Life ascends even to the highest reaches of the range, thousands of feet above tree line, where gardens of black, orange, and chartreuse lichen adorn the rock. Everywhere a tenacious living skin sheaths the ancient bones of the mountains. - RICHARD J. NEVLE

Here at Malarkey Central, we've got a thing for rocks and for bones.  Hunting for, gathering, oohing and aahing, cleaning, polishing and displaying these treasures in rather large quantities.  And for climbing on the ancient bones of mountains where we find so many of these relics.

But this affection for the spines of things is also personal for me.  My own bones are no longer  the strong inner framework they once were.  I sometimes wonder if it is my own tenacious living skin​ holding me together.

And so, while some folks may have spirit animals or celestial guides, my own talismans are stony and bony - oozing strength, resilience, solidity and groundedness.  Some of those stones, the agates, are also translucent.  A symbol of my becoming more worn with time so the light shines through (a Mark Nepo-ism which I embrace).  Because there is a silver lining to most everything, in my rose-colored lenses.  Even the slow eroding of the mountains of our own bones.

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About the art:  inspired by the quote to create a sheath of  "skin" on an abstracted landscape, I set out to build a number of layers and a thickness the mountains would appreciate.  I began by collecting paint palettes still wet from completed pieces and pressed them against the canvases, building an uneven layer of texture and color.  Once those dried, I roughed in the composition with a thick application of dark paint.  Allowing it to also dry, then coming in with a palette knife and thick paint in successive wet on wet layers, leaving some of the dark poking through to give edge definition and allowing the wet layers to mingle.  Two long months of drying time on these two.  Worth every minute!

The Great Spine of Rock II

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The November Reader Giveaway begins today!  Leave a comment on any (or many) blog post(s) this month to be automatically entered to win a free piece of original art.  The winner (or winners) will be announced right here in the blog on November 25th.