Page 11, Watercolor sketchbook. Dimensions: 6.75” x 3.875” (17.2cm x 12.4cm)
Sketchbooks from 2005-2009. Stephen Van de Walker Handy
Watercolor, gauche, ink and varnish on paper.
Copyright ©2009 Stephen Van de Walker Handy All Rights Reserved.
Page 9, Watercolor sketchbook. Dimensions: 6.75” x 3.75” (17.2cm x 9.5cm)
Sketchbooks from 2005-2009. Stephen Van de Walker Handy
Watercolor, gauche, ink and varnish on paper.
Copyright ©2009 Stephen Van de Walker Handy All Rights Reserved.
Page 10, Watercolor sketchbook. Dimensions: 6.875” x 3.75” (17.5cm x 12.1cm)
Sketchbooks from 2005-2009. Stephen Van de Walker Handy
Watercolor, gauche, ink and varnish on paper.
Copyright ©2009 Stephen Van de Walker Handy All Rights Reserved.
Page 2, Watercolor sketchbook, 2005-2009. Stephen Van de Walker Handy
Watercolor, gauche, ink and varnish on paper.
Copyright ©2009 Stephen Van de Walker Handy All Rights Reserved.
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Each season, it regenerates the story. This story is old. Told long before our kind shared this world. It is made of the dust of eons. |
What I imagine… These images capture the aesthetic that currently holds my attention and sensibility. I am intrigued by the self-reflexive nature of the aged photo, captured as if in a distant time, yet apprehended with new clarity in the present. They evoke emotions of ineffable loss or of times too distant to recreate fully as an inner image. Each image a memory or perhaps more accurately a mnemonic that prevents us from forgetting some aspect of the past. However from the perspective of the present moment, the distant past can now be observed and understood safely. Perhaps we (humans) are no longer the observer. I often imagine that some distant alien progeny are the ones to have unearthed these images from the ruins of our own civilization. They look upon them as a small child looks for the first time upon a picture of their great grandmother or distant cousin. |
I envision the perspective of the observer in the present to be liberated and also somewhat naive. Naive in the same way our own understandings of ancient cultures are often naive. The naiveté arises from our incomplete and myopic perspective of the culture as an outside and distant observer isolated in both time and space from the original events. The context is gone. It can never again be fully reconstructed. The paradox is that the absence of this context is precisely what gives rise to more complete understanding. We are not bound to be a participant in the world we are now observing. This I feel is true, even though, somewhat ironically, the images I create are of the present world in which we live.
The artifacts, in this case are photos, and they did not survive the passage of time unaffected. They are no longer entirely clear. Hazy, partially obscure, and worn, they still contain mysteries yet to be discovered. Mysteries that may in fact never be discovered.
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Parallel experiences… These experiences for me are paradoxical on a personal level as well. By transforming the present into a perceivable object of the past, I too can come to understand their subjects and stories in a different way. What if the things in the photos were no more? Images, no matter how mundane, become precious treasures. In time, however, it is inevitable for these treasures to also fade. So I ask, “What meaning did they have?” By extension, I believe I am also asking what meaning did or do I have. Humanity as a whole has a life span. It will someday die too. In a universe where the concept of trillions has become tangible, time itself appears infinitely short. Perceived on this scale, it becomes undeniable that our lives, our species, our galaxy, our very existence in time is small. Our ends are always an instant away. |
 Alone… |
From the vantage point of our moment of death, our lives will seem incomprehensibly brief. It is no different than a crack of lightening in a summer storm. For it is only in the present that moments and perceptions of time and possibility interconnect to form objects of clarity and meaning.
Words…
The union of words and images is always an uneasy pairing for me. Nonetheless, I am still drawn to the combination. I find when I create a visual work that I often have a corresponding inner narrative or dialog. This narrative is instrumental to the formation of the work. Even though the image and words can exist separately to varying degrees of success, I find they provide context for one another that would otherwise not exist.
Shared understandings…
I see and feel these things when I create this work. I am often uncertain if others perceive these layers in my work as well. I find this bit of knowledge to be important for me to probe once in awhile. Am I making something that is a manifestation solely of my private inner language? Is my work akin to the neologisms of the schizophrenic? Or do others perceive this meaning as well? Time will tell.
I’ve finally made a decision for how my blogs will be divided up. SVdWH.com, this site, will become my personal/professional site and portfolio. My related site, hologenetic.wordpress.com, will become a site for collaboration and experimentation with words and images. Much of the content on this site will be moved to hologenetic, and some of the content on that site will move here.
| Between worlds we emerge |
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| … We struggle and prepare … |
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| … For re-emergence … |
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| … We seek clarity and unity … |
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| … Continuation of identity … |
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| We grow until we are at an end |
More Tags: Stephen Handy,Existence,Words,Poetry,Photography,Nature,SVdWH,Art,Recapitulation,Struggle,emergence,Continuation,self
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Hologenetic (My recent work)
