Volume 2. Chapter 7. Aggregation

Forest clearing

First, geological sedimentation and uplift. Second, forest succession, resulting in trees. Third, each tree growing, out and upward, roots and branches adding a ring each year. Fourth, the effects of earthquake, flood, fire, and mankind, making matchsticks from cathedrals of nature.

Roots and branches

By their nature, roots and branches reach from their origins to gather water, minerals, sunlight. Each seed, each vine, each bush reaches out and wants it all and becomes an icon of itself.

Seed

Each seed, like popcorn after it’s popped, has its uniqueness, as well as being true to its type.

Fall color

The breath of green departs the leaves like a burning bush.

Flower

Petals unfold from the bud, having the same structure.

Fruit

Fruits swell from the ovary, having the same structure.

Cross-sections

Here’s a tree whose cross-section looks like parquet floor tile. This fruit opens up to a picture of the Union Jack. Doe eyes, cat eyes, women’s whalebone corsets, and undersea cables, some smooth, some hairy, appear in vivid lines, no two alike.

Strange species

There may be many species, yet undiscovered, that the artist discovers by imagining them. Deep-sea sponge with cartoon eyes, fancy fox tails, jellyfish shaped like flowers, faces of a lynx attached to stems, leaves like fly swatters, tendrils like the spirals of ferns, planet-like spheres floating in living clouds. These seem to have arisen from a dream, but like living creatures these are a part of creation.

Ooids

Spherical calcite accretions grow like pearls in cave ponds and can stick together like grapes, but these aren’t ooids. Wave actions create ooids in supersaturated saltwater on limestone beds. These are under two millimeters.

Time and plants

When we understand time, then space will not seem as miraculous. Once DNA and elements are arranged, if plants don’t think, then no thinking is needed to take advantage of time and space.

Roots

Roots protrude like worms or a nest of snakes attempting to escape into the dark and damp ground while leaves reach for light.

Modes

Shifting, rotating, and reflecting create movements. Increased pigmentations offsets dimensional decreases. Eyes move from dark to light or from white to color.

Interwoven patches

Colored squares and rectangles arrest the eye, balancing hue, saturation, and sizes. Gradations of brown weave into gradations of brightness. These squares disassemble a garden in flower or analyze the fabrics in a crowd of dancers gathered to embark.

Cut flower

It’s not the flower, its color, its delicate nature or its transient existence. Love like the proverbial birds and bees shares beauty and possibility. Spring emerges like the crocus, but it’s not that we cut it off and put it in a glass of water. It’s a finite thingin a limited form with an infinite interior.

Vase

This vase can’t hold water. We can’t even find it. It’s lost in a jumble of pillow and kitten, pants and skirt. A line starts in the tangle and might as well be infinite in a sea of pleasant colors.

Garden after a storm

Many small shapes make a large composition. There’s no denying they have their moments. Torn and scattered, it doesn’t matter. In the face of their beauty chaos is futile.