The seeds.
Of my growth.
Live within my heart.
Each a detail of the whole. ~Ally.
The moment we begin to seek love:
Love begins to seek us.
~Paulo Coelho.
Making this arrangement.
The background of this ephemeral artwork was an ice piece that had been made with a simple arrangement of tiny white stones and some slightly larger white quartz stones. Under the ice, the stones created the white-on-white nebulous atmosphere I wanted.
Three perfectly formed gardenias were placed on the surface of the ice and five garlic seed pods were positioned under and around the flowers.
The original image.
The image below: The strongest love, was the original photograph and first shown on my Tumblr website. You can see it HERE.
The top image: The moment we begin to seek love, was the original image, after being stylized very slightly with the Deep Dream Generator.
I experimented with the Deep Dream Generator for about five months. My initial idea was to see what my photographs would look like in the style of other artists. Maybe it would help me in my quest to start drawing and painting again?
In many ways it did. But in the end, I realized that my own artwork is not so much entangled with the 'weird and phantasmagorical' ~ But it's more about the perception of 'magic' that lies within the beauty and harmony of simplicity.
And so finally, after generating thousands upon thousands of images using my own images as the Base image and the images of other artists as the Style image, what seemed to work best for me, was to use one of my own images as both the Base and Style and just ever so slightly increase the stylization effect. You'll have to look closely at the two images to actually notice all that much difference ~ But it's there. And for me, that's all that's necessary in order to suggest a slightly painterly effect.
The strongest love is the love that can:
Demonstrate its fragility.
~Paulo Coelho.
In every love lies the seed of our growth. ~Paulo Coelho.
The quotes I've selected to accompany my images are by Paulo Coelho in his book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.
I read the book several years ago and can't remember ever weeping so much whilst reading a book. I tend to love happy-ever-after endings in books and films and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept certainly provided that. But to reach her own truth our heroine had to leave the man she had grown to love, when he started to love her more than the spiritual path they were both destined to follow.
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept strives to show that 'true love is an act of total surrender.' At a deeper level, Coelho also gives the message that as there are no rules when it comes to love, there are no rules when it comes to worshiping God: 'To love is to be in communion with the other, and to discover in that other the spark of God.' Nabou Book Review.
Coelho talks about a long-forgotten aspect of God: His feminine side, the so-called 'Goddess' ~ Present in the love the two main characters feel for each other. The monk turned Goddess-worshiper at first thinks he’s faced with the dilemma of staying with the woman he loves and abandoning the life that fulfils him, or venturing on his planned mission to change the world. In the end, he discovers that a choice need not be made: To love a woman is to love life itself. Nabou Book Review.
Ephemeral Art and Photography: ©Alison Lee Cousland.
About my Art.
After working with many traditional art modalities: drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture and photography ~ My art making is more attuned now to nature, as I work with relatively small assemblages and arrangements built up from stones and crystals, flowers, weeds and plants combined with other natural materials that I find in the local bushland or surrounding urban streets. The Heart of Immortality
Hundreds of photographs are taken at different stages, that can't possibly capture the beauty I see with my eyes or the feelings felt while adding and removing, arranging and rearranging components such as dried sticks covered with lichen, crystals and rocks, shells and seeds. The Heart of Immortality
In our beliefs about who we are
We breathe life into our greatest joys
As well as our darkest moments. ~Gregg Braden.
💎 S H I N E 💎 Y O U R 💎 L I G H T 💎
