Viewpoints9 Challenge #3

Seven Sisters: 18”x24” artist dyed, painted and stitched

Our third challenge was posed by Lin Hsin-Chen: "Horizon" refers not to a real line but to the infiniteness of the line which can only be perceived by feelings.  Therefore, we should not search line, but rather find a way to perceive the line.  Lines are indeed a medium that can spark human beings' creative genius, as well as their impulse for communications, by which the texture of knowledge is born.

Nature is separated into upper and lower sections by the horizon, generating spatial vocabulary and dialogues.  Humans unknowingly come to accept the linear attributes captured in time and space, and meanwhile some sense of awakening, some sort of subtlety, also arises in their hearts.  Yet, where on earth do these feeling come from?

Delicate lines carry emotions and expressions, and also other aspects than that should be explored.  I want to challenge all kinds of prospectives about lines and discover the touching consonances and fascinating textures composed by lines.

I started with ‘horizon’.  I didn’t get too much farther in my thinking with ‘line’.  As I began thinking about horizon, with ‘lines’ in the back of my brain, I began looking at the heavens.  In my research the words Astronomical horizon had captured my imagination.

I’ve always been intrigued with instances of groups of people, quite separate geographically and culturally, coming to very similar places in their descriptions of their environment, their explanations of the outside world and their mythologies.  While I was looking heavenward metaphorically, I remembered that many peoples have similar stories of the spirits and deities that reside in the heavens.

Pleiades, for example, is know as “seven sisters” to Australian Aboriginal communities and the Nez Perce of North America, “daughters of the night” to the Berber, and “seven sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law” for the Ben Raji of Nepal.

We are all similarly hard-wired with a need to survive.  To survive we must understand our environment and, sometimes, that means we impose meaning on natural phenomena.

Across the world peoples have drawn imaginary lines in the sky, describing creation tales of morality and explanations for earthly people, and, of course, those that navigate the globe.

Be sure to check the Viewpoints9 blog for other, sure to be interesting, interpretations of Lin Hsin-Chen's challenge.

post-script:  You might remember seeing this fabric pictured as it was being dyed.  The post was Dyeing in someone ELSE's yard on Sunday August 5, 2012