My mother is often heard saying, "If only I were a painter..." especially at scenic vistas, sunsets, and special family events. I think she could be a good painter too but it takes a special kind of person who is willing to put their soul out there on canvas for others to critique and analyze. Do you feel like you want to paint a beautiful scene when you see one?
I understand where my mother's sentiment is coming from. When I was little, the word desert had no tangible meaning to me, it was only a word that could easily be misspelled to read, dessert...and hey who doesn't like dessert. Now, I live opposite one of the most scenic desert mountain ranges in Israel. The southern part of Israel is mostly made up of the Negev desert. Even the name, Negev, implies a land swept clean, barren. Ecologists will argue the point that what we perceive as barren is teaming with life, just life that escapes our glances, ways of life that require a different pace of life to be seen.
The mountainscape of the southern Arava has a different life however, a constantly changing (evolving?) scene that would beguile and frustrate the most adept of artists. I haven't decided if this is an inspiration or a frustration. If it were me, I would want to paint the scene and then move on. Here a painter could paint a number of paintings from the same exact position and no two paintings would be the same. It might even be hard to convince someone who has never been to the Arava valley that the mountains could be so different from day to day.
We have an artist on the kibbutz, her name is Marla Slott and she paints, sculpts and otherwise defies nature with her brush strokes. Somehow she is able to capture the emotion of a landscape that changes more quickly than a busy Tel Aviv thoroughfare and emote the desert landscape for even the casual viewer to appreciate.
There is a decided danger to this environment that comes with a stern warning. The danger is in believing that we are producing a more stable world. The warning is usually subtle, showing itself in hues of change until the day when it erupts from the surface and swallows our attention.
In general, I believe, we as humans are ever seeking stability and predictability. I guess this is in and of itself an oxymoron since we are always seeking and yet looking for the stability. Predictability is what keeps us sane. The sun will rise tomorrow so I don't have to worry about the sun setting today. This landscape, this ever changing and evolving desert chalice, makes us question the predictability of tomorrow. Perhaps that is why the desert has been so inspirational for many teachers, writers, philosophers, and of course to many artists.
The sands and the rocks are moving beneath our feet and these are the minute changes that can only be perceived over longer periods of time but that can suddenly become very violent and controlling. As much as we would like to think we can control our lives, we are ultimately not masters of our fates. Tectonic plates, global warming, ice ages, and human polemic are constantly moving and re-shaping our world.
I suppose it could be easier if we were all to live in more stable environments, but instead we choose to dig and force our lives to take root in the shifting sands. In this flux we build our homes because we want to carry on a dialogue with the nature that seeks to control and to learn to control our need for control and stability.
Shabbat Shalom
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