"Liquid Mirrors"

acrylic on canvas, museum wrap, 30" x 40"

The most beautiful time of day to me, is dusk. There is a peaceful settling up quality to it I find no matter where I am. The fading light carries with it the activity and energy of the day and allows a gathering in of place and self for the rest of evening.

Nowhere is this more evident to me than in the marsh. The huge expanse of sky across the meditative landscape of grasses has always called to me. There is something very holy and tender about the light across the water. Years ago, on a birding trip, I named it 'liquid mirrors' for the way it transforms the surface of the water into a reflection of the sky. The opaline tones are breathtaking.

During the day, the marsh is teeming with life. It is the nursery school for thousands of different kinds of birds, fish, plants and insects. The labyrinth of water trails through it, a mystery known only to seasoned fishermen and devoted boaters. It provides refuge for the body, mind and spirit. With the coming of dusk everything that was busy feeding, hunting and growing, withdraws from those activities and begins to seek out the secret resting places where they go at night. A quiet mysteriousness descends.

In this scene I have tried to capture a bit of the magical moment that occurs when the light becomes more and more violet at the edge of the water and blurs the point in which the sky ends and the water begins. Often as I have watched it happen I have marveled at how it creates a center of light, almost a threshold, across the expanse of sky and water and grass and in my musings I wonder, what would it be like if we could step through it?