Habitual Motion 137 x 122 (oil on canvas)

Perpetual motion through space.

Space forms around the motion, perpetually edges become obsolete.

Obsoleteness materializes as a perpetual cycle and edges once again begin to develop.

Similar to the way electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom, NEOWISE whizzes by the sun in a 6,800 year cycle. To appreciate an orbit is to be aware of its existence. Although a difficult task this may also be applied to aspects of anthropomorphic life, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Cycles appear prevalent out to the farthest reaches of the universe. The lifespan of a star depends on its size and the amount of matter (star nutrients) provided from the nebula of which it was born. Our sun is a Yellow Dwarf and plays an integral role with how we experience life on earth. It drives the seasons, ocean currents, weather, climate, and many other factors. It feeds Earth life.

Earth completes its orbit around the sun in 365 days. The sun is aging and will eventually become a Red Giant over the next 5 billion years. This is the last stage of our Sun’s star life. We won’t be around to experience this, but in a way we will because we’re all part of it, the existence of perpetual motion and transference of energy.

In our lives there also exist cycles, only on a much smaller scale when compared to the cosmos, yet much larger than the quantum level that composes us. The inception of the young, the passing of the old. The beginning of a new relationship to the breaking up and floating away. From daily routines, to eating habits, emotions, actions, things that bring us happiness and things that harm us. They orbit our egos in positive and negative ways. Some conditions may only visit your human every couple months, some every evening, it can come in forms of depression, or it can be an overwhelming brilliance of happiness, whatever it may be the beauty of cycles is that with an acute eye they can be recognized.

Initially I started this painting out of angst, thinking about the way we exert our presence on the natural world. For about a decade now my work has been inspired by environmental issues. I find it ironic how rather than cutting down forests, we should be planting them, rather than putting an end to fossil fuels we are proposing new mines, and how we are more concerned with the salvation of our domesticated pets than we seem to be with the silent extinction of the life in the forest and reef systems. But, it all starts with me…And you!

Things can feel bleak and art can be therapeutic. Hunkered in the seclusion of my studio, sitting with my paints after a wicked hangover I began thinking about my life. I reflected on how, often times, my actions dictate my emotions, and they seem to move cyclically. In life there are ups and downs, bits of inspiration and discouragement, confidence and uncertainty, some are self triggered and some are altered by exterior influencers. These same patterns from ones self, can be magnified to the cycles of a neighborhood, to a city, to a state, and so fourth.

It’s all relative, extremely complex, but at the same time ever so simple.

Life will always be filled with aphelions and perihelions, it’s how we decide to navigate their orbit that we can fully experience the beauty of experiencing experience.

I reckon that by recognizing and isolating a “controllable cycle” that a person feels is detrimental to their health or creativity and by mentally envisioning a gap in the ellipse that… By golly! The perpetual motion has a crack! And where that crack lies is a chance to adjust the orbit in a direction that better suits a persons goals and aspirations. And when that the cycle has transformed a nascent habit is born. Whether the new trajectory of the previous habit will return or there was just enough kick to send it out of orbit off into space, only time will tell.

Here are couple quotes from one of my favorite old school heavy thinkers that I feel ties into cycles and ego.

“Life requires movement” - Aristotle

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”-Aristotle

“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit” -Aristotle

Habitual Motion