A small missive to go with a small video.
This morning I woke up and before I had opened my eyes properly, I knew I was going to go straight to my easel and paint. It was time, I guess. I have been really shy of painting since my Sage passed, feeling quite hollow in the creativity department, or the painting sub-department anyway. But overnight it seems something was worked out (behind the weird dreams) and I couldn’t wait to finish feeding Seraphina her breakfast, and brew my tea, and get started.
Here in Australia we have the Dingo as a wild-dog predator. Nowhere near as big as wolves, they are more similar in size to a coyote, though their bite pressure is stronger, according to my Google-kung-foo. Aside from the dingo, we do not have any large predators at all, no wolves, no bears, no lions, or tigers (oh my). I have always been fascinated by large predators though, wolves in particular. Their size and strength, the primaeval energy, their complex relationship with their land, their intricate relationships with each other and the wild kin they share their world with. Utterly fascinating to me. I have drawn them and painted them a few times, and there are still multiple iterations of them on my (very long) to-do list still.
Coyote though, I know very little about. I have never seen a coyote with my own eyes (mind, I have only seen wolves at a dismal and heart-breaking ‘wildlife park’ in South Dakota when I was 25), but I am fascinated by indigenous tales of their wily trickster character, and their relationship to creation and healing and adaptability (all of the things I yen for today). I can only compare them to a fox, which I have at least seen here (an invasive species, yes, but I still adore them). Painting an animal gives me time to have a conversation with them, and learn a little more each time I spend a while with them. And so, this morning, I had a conversation with a coyote in a gloriously snowy landscape, and her energy, her medicine, was just what I needed.
My sketchbooks have been such a comfort to me this year. They have become a place of respite, and refuge, and much less pressure for this perfectionist heart. There is something a little “Secret Garden” about them too. I can share, or they can be just for me - if I close the book no one but me even knows what is in there. It is a little special, a little magical, and something I am leaning a lot more into. It is a place I can practise, to work out colour relationships and layering, to let go and play, to work quickly, to have short but never the less sweet conversations, and to work small, which I love (though I want to work crazy big one day too, when I have a room that can take a larger panel!). If something I am working on does not pan out the way I hoped, or for any other reason or whim, I can start over. Slap a fresh layer of paint over it and start again. And yes, that can be done with a larger panel too, obviously, but there is still something a bit scarier about doing it on a larger, more purposeful substrate. To me anyway. At this point. Because it is all fluid, right? We are all on adventures, journeys, experience gathering, and what feels needed and right and impossibly certain today may not be the same in a week or a year. And somehow talking to a coyote and playing in a sketchbook versus painting on a large panel has turned into existential philosophising.
Art making, for me, entails four important elements. I have varying success at them at any one time, but I keep working towards their beautiful, empowering, supportive, evolution. The medium and substrate are only a means to getting to these much less concrete, but much more deliciously embodying elements.
Curiosity, compassion, courage, reciprocity.
We could change that last one to connection to keep that alliteration vibe happening, but I want to be clear that it is more than connection, it is my practice of reciprocity. This work is my gift to these beings. It is my honouring, my worship, my celebration, my veneration, my deepest reverence. It is my recognition, I see you, wild one.
I am going to gather my thoughts on these four elements and write more about them in the coming weeks, but for now, I wanted to share what I was working on this morning, fresh off the easel. Coyote winter. I wanted to show you all the ugly phases, of which there are many (and most were not filmed). I wanted to show you how deliciously slow the process is, so there are clips in real time, and then for entertainment’s sake, there is a little time lapse in the middle. Forgive the wobbly nature of this - I used my phone, mostly hand held. I will set up my proper camera next time.
For those of you that have met coyote, I want to hear your tales. I know they can be what we like to call ‘pests’, but I rather think a large proportion of the human population can be considered the same, haha. I want to hear about your interactions with these wonderfully wild beings, and how connecting with them felt.
What will be on the next page of this Wild Sketchbook, do you think?
Natalie xo
With thanks to Chuck Black for a gorgeous series of coyote pictures - you will no doubt see more pop up in this Wild Sketchbook.
Painting Coyote Winter