Update August 20. My concept of symbolizing all relationships has developed as I painted. Today the painting of the relationship vase has been saved by scrapping the many symbols decorating the vase in order of making the idea of a vase itself being the relationship most valuable. When dirt and water is mixed a clay that can be formed is made into a vessel and fired into hard ceramic - a symbol of creation and of ourselves. Ceramics have brought about the most humanizing changes like food storage and agriculture. Vases have replaced human sacrifice. Vases have democratised the observance of death. some uses of ceramic at first seemed destructive of human virtues but can also be seen as a learning challenge. Ceramic shells can withstand the heat of catalytic atomic explosions.
On the 18th I was making a more complex multiple array of relationships. I painted a shaft of wheat poised above Pu reminding me that fowl smelling manure fertilizes wheat from which we make bread that sustains us. I have also added the relationship of clay mixed with water and then fired to make pottery. Pottery is often used to symbolize relationships. I am now looking for examples of pottery from other cultures and times. I am almost ready to make a ceramic vase about all relationships. I am not completely satisfied with the painting because it has so much happening. I want to communicate at an emotional level and the chemical symbols might not communicate as well as the foods.
The "Relationship Vase Painting" is oil on a 12" square canvas designed to hang in the corner of the room. The idea for this painting was contributed by Rain. Rain is a woman rancher and blogger. She wrote me that relationships are most precious to her. Relationships are valuable not just the lovely, nice fitted ones but all of them. Relationships that do not work for us are ones we learn from.
Rain's "Relationships" is truly a challenge. For symbolizing all relationships, I can't make a sweet pretty gem of a vase. So I have painted an oil painting of a vase with proportional relationships that makes me feel good. This is a historic classic Chinese shape. A vase of this shape was given as gifts or treasured for their reminder of diverse people having similarities in common. In the background I have the periodic table. http://dayah.com/periodic/ and a solar spectrum similar to a rainbow.http://www.solarobserving.com/pics/hydrogen-spectra.jpg. I give two names to the black cow who is like Jekyll and Hyde - Fissile Pu after the radio active isotope plutonium. She has a calf escaping the field of the vase. The calf's name is Pb, the abreviation given to lead because one element that is formed in the radio active reactions is lead. The calves break through the barrier and become their own element symbolizing a relationship in decay and the seriousness of relationships that could be the ultimate destruction or if we learn our lesson well Plutonium could be key to an energy filled future. The other name I give to the cow is Elsie and she is in relationship with sunshine, cow's milk, bee's honey, and wheat bread.
