Images that arose while creating this:
nest, telescope, Andy Goldsworthy’s nature art, revealed/hidden, interference, water drops in a pond, radio waves, Zen gardens, aboriginal paintings, Advent calendars.

Materials:
Pages from F.C. Happold’s “Mysticism” book (bought at UTC bookstore at least 20 years ago)
Distress Ink – tumbled glass, antique linen, brushed corduroy, rusty hinge
“You are here” stamp
Dr. P.H. Martin’s Bombay sepia ink
White “gelly roll” pen

Tools:
matte medium, sponge brush, paint brush, glue stick, Strathmore 9×12 visual journal

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao”
– you can never reveal Truth through words (or even art)

I glued down the pieces of the pages from the “Mysticism” book – all about a direct experience of God. How funny that you can’t talk about it, but this author certainly tried in many pages. After gluing down the pages, I inked over them. I let it dry and noticed later that some of the pages had overlapped – I’d not put matte medium on top of the pages, just on the journal paper. Thus, some of the edges could be lifted up to reveal the un-inked words underneath. How awesome to the theme that they happened to include
Truth
God, dwelling

Which is what mysticism is about, and this artwork. It was positive feedback that I was on the right path.

I inked the three poems that spoke about mysticism (included in the pages I’d torn out of the book) with a pale blue to indicate robin’s eggs. They are the eggs in the nest. They are the fruit of the tree. They will mature and fly away, spreading the truth.

Yet the nest is not filled in – there is a big hole in the middle. This is where you find yourself.

I dripped the ink on, but then used a brush to wick some up. It made excellent patterns and colors (very subtle) in the bottom right. I’ll try to replicate that later on another piece. Some blots I left solid to dry. They became “rocks” in the Zen garden, so I used a white pen to draw the waves around them. They too obscure the words, but yet reveal more in their obscuring than the words do in their revelation.