Michelle (Basic) Hendry - Fine Artist & Author

Artist and Author - Landscapes and Ruins

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If You Sit Perfectly Still…

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Abstract Ice
Muskoka Lake Ice on Still Water (photograph)© 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

Have you ever sat perfectly still in a canoe, at dusk in the late Spring?

Mosquitos and blackflies will gather around your head, but, as they search for a place to land, a nearly silent hunter will stalk them.

If you remain perfectly still….

The only sound this hunter will make is mostly outside the range of your ears. All you will hear is the water drop from the paddle. If you look in the fading light, you can see them. They move quickly and erratically – they are Bats.

But there is one experience that is greater than the seeing – it is the feeling. If you sit perfectly still, you can feel the air move as they sweep past your head.

Close your eyes and the World changes…

For me this is what defines true presence. An excellent photographer or an artist; a writer or a musician, occupies a state of complete presence when they are working on their art. Great art is more than an experience – it is a feeling – it engages another sense apart from the one for which it seems designed to communicate.

I have been struggling with a difficult bout of sinusitis for a couple of weeks now. It seems to come and go and wreaks havoc on my ability to focus. It has put me behind in my work, my posting here and on the Small Paintings Blog. I escaped briefly in to the dusk on Thursday to capture a few photos of that magical time. The bugs are still weeks away, but the ice is receding. One mystery transforms into another.

You can feel it, from time to time, if you sit perfectly still……

Muskoka Ice
A wider angle of the same place as above © 2009 Michelle Basic Hendry

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Comments

  1. wonderful photos 🙂 nice capture of the colours in the sky and lake

    I have only been in a canoe once and only once and I almost fell out :p I have sat on various docks completely still and had birds come right up to me, squirrels and chipmunks climb on my lap (that was really hard not to move for :p). Would have loved to have seen bats. I’ve only seen them in zoos and wildlife centres. they get such a bad rap its sad that people are afraid of them (same thing with snakes)

    I really hope you get better. never nice dealing with an illness that you can’t seem to get rid of.

    I agree. great art is about feeling. it doesn’t matter really what it makes you feel, good or bad, but the fact that the art made you feel anything at all proves that the artist did their job.

  4. Michelle,
    That top photo is incredible in the same way that Mark Rothko’s paintings speak to me. I am trying to “sit still” more often. Good for the soul.
    Love,
    Linda

  6. Thanks, Jennifer Rose – I hope you are feeling better soon too! Bats are wonderful creatures. We have them right here every summer. I want to build a bat house. We are close to a wetland, so I know we can attract many!

    Thanks, Kinsey! 🙂

    Claire – Your doodle made me laugh so hard, I nearly fell out of my chair! Thanks for that!

    Linda – The persistence of this sinusitis, suggests I need a little more ‘still time’… 🙂

    Thank you so much, Jean! 😀

  7. Hehe glad you liked it, mine have been ruddy awful and I seem to be getting more allergic to things the older I get. Which does not make me a happy bunny at all.

    So I have decided to come and live with you, hope you don’t mind? hah!

    Hope it gets better soon! Have you tried the neti pot thing before?

  9. What a beautiful post, Michelle. I do know what you mean about being still in order to feel the landscape. That magical mystery. Hope you’re feeling better soon.

  12. Michelle,

    If one day you come here in Provence, i suggest that you bring not only your paintings and brushes but also your camera.

    Your 2 photographs are beautiful.
    The top one reveals your artistic view of the scene but i’m an unconditional lover of wide angle landscapes and so my fav is the wonderfully exposed sunset.

  13. Very good point here. Hope you’re feeling better. Nothing quite like sinus trouble to just make things miserable! *hug*

  15. I agree exactly with what you wrote, Michelle.. I do my best work when I am totally alone and enveloped in the environment.. I don’t have a clue what is going on around me, but am just concentrating on how to capture that feeling of place and moment in order to communicate it through a photograph.
    I agree that these are both great, but I am partial to the abstract and painterly quality of the first one.. I love for photos to work first and formost as graphic design; if it also records the scene on top of that, so much the better.

  16. Mark – I am mostly a landscape artist, but that top photo might be the basis for my first experiments with abstract painting, because of exactly what you see.

  19. Beautiful photo. I love looking for bats, but I don’t remember ever feeling one flit by. Does that mean I never sit still enough? Something to try although I’m not sure I can if the mosquitoes are biting…
    Hope you feel better soon.

  20. I do already, Ingrid! Thanks for the compliments too. Out on the water, I think the insects focus more around your head, so you are more likely to feel the air from the bat’s wing. I have only felt it on the water – and it is very slight.

  21. As always, wonderful photos…I enjoyed your words…I’ve always “felt” as though I should be a painter…don’t know why because I’m not but I’ve often thought maybe I just haven’t found my medium yet!

    I’ve had issues with sinusitis for years…I understand…hope you fell better soon!

    Cheers

  23. Dear Michelle ~ this is so apt for me – and co-incidental – thank you for visiting my new blog…especially as it is named “stillPoint”…also this wonderful post, which, coupled with your photography, seems to settle and also open me to the intrinsic spirituality that is in everything…also I was so pleased that Liara Covert found you…especially as I have just read on of her posts…

    http://blog.dreambuilders.com.au/journal/2010/1/1/what-is-stillness.html

    There comes a point when co-incidence becomes a teacher.

    xhenry