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Between the Gates

On July 23, 2018, a flashflood swept through our Santa Fe property, a thunderous tsunami in a quiet valley. All the fences and gates were destroyed, washed downstream with animals, debris and boulders. Buildings and homes in its path were filled with mud. My work went from the universal to the personal, understanding that our presumed control over our environment had changed to a “new norm”.

As a multidisciplinary artist committed to learning, I divide my time between studios in Seattle and Santa Fe. I work in beeswax, resin and oil, often incorporating stones, found objects, lead sheeting, precious metals, textiles, papers, glass and bronze. A constant thread in my work is the elemental archetypes of the physical and cosmic world: water; fire; woods, mountains and earth; air and wind; space and ether.

In 2017 Radius Books published 108, my monograph focusing on 14 years of using this philosophically significant number. The new work maintains the same patterns of repetition echoing the basic components of our natural systems. Horizontal lines offer visual boundaries: sky and ocean with the simplicity of shadows and light; strata of earth walls with subtle seeps of water; pathways in quiet snow. The work vibrates between opposites: marks of delicate tracery against heavy incising; smooth melted wax confronted by textured oil stick; reversal of colors with reflections of metal leaf.

When the line turns to vertical, stacking lines then parallel the continual seismic wavelengths of the earth’s movements and our personal heart rhythms. They repeat the microcosms of forests. Lines become the walls and fences of the volatile systems of existence in which we are living. The gates become the escape from our unstable world.

My work hopes to link us to the anima and earth: seeing with open eyes; cherishing the waters that ensure our survival. Our cultural memory lies within the physicality of place as we continue to find ways to understand and bond not only to our environment, but most importantly, to each other.  

Catherine Eaton Skinner
August 2019