Bird’s eye view

30 X 22 [pastels, charcoal, book making paper, gold ink on paper]

Ever since childhood I have loved the sort of illustration which contains a lot of points of interest, like Persian miniatures and illuminations from the Middle Ages, or Chinese landscape paintings, in which one can mingle with the tiny men and donkeys making their way up the mountain path, the courtiers kibitzing on the edges of a royal hunt, the well-dressed ladies dispensed around their boxy seraglios. In this picture a sumptuous woman lies across a magic carpet, upsetting a crow as she whisks through the air. Below her a landscape of deserts, waters and mankind’s works stretches out, while she serenely takes it in, even marvels at it, but such is her scope that attention to any one concern cannot last long. From her vantage point she sees that there is flow, and design in the flow, and that things, overall, even out.