The Fine Print
Category: News
2012 World Ocean Day Image for U.S. State Dept.
To PURCHASE a poster please scroll to bottom of the page
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in it net of wonder forever.”
Jacque-Yves Cousteau
I have been a scuba diver for over twenty five years and have witnessed a lot of coral bleaching from the effects of carbon monoxide, most recently on a trip I took to the Carribean. I believe that collectively we need to build an awareness-as they wrote on the backside of the poster “The interconnected ocean is Earth’s enduring frontier. Full of mystery, the ocean harbors Earth’s most diverse life forms.” Being able to contribute to the mission of the World Ocean Day was very rewarding.
I have tons of journals that I have paint in while I am on a diving trip. Usually, I bring a small set of watercolors and paint and draw immediately after surfacing while on the boat. Interpreting the form, color, plant life and species immediately, I am able to internalize and preserve the images for future projects like this one.
Here are a few images from the studio while I gathered my materials, which always opens doors to new discoveries, some of which included in the image are the giant red tubeworms thriving on chemicals spewing from the ocean floor, crabs with “fur”, recognizing that 25% of all marine species depend on our coral reefs. The challenge for me was how to fit them all 26 of the animals featured into a unified space so I utilized a giant wave again (a theme explored in my Earth Day image from 2007) but this time, the palette was much brighter. I have been exploring the clay work with a more fluid approach to the painting combined with the detail of the inks being scratched away. I tried a few new techiques with this piece including an elaborate underpainting with added relief from the clay.
DETAIL
The posters are not available in the United States (only the Embassies across the world because of a longstanding law against advertising the United States.)
I was given 100 posters and will be offering these signed posters for $40.00. plus $15. for shipping and handling or email me at cb@cathiebleck.com.
A portion of my proceeds will go to The Coral Reef Alliance
Please allow 2 weeks for delivery
“frAGILITY” Series :: Scroll Project
I began this large-scale visual journal on paper during the end of the summer of 2011 through parts of 2012.
The lace of relationships that run through our lives and fill the natural world around us are filled with beauty an paradox. At one glance, we can be inspired by the grace and power that pulses through our grand collective world. At the next glance, in each microcosm, lay the delicate and fragile threads where we and those we know and love live, breathe, work, entwine and embrace.
I began this body of work on a large scale. On a cold winter day in 2012, with both trepidation and excitement I unfurled six 50 inch wide blank bone white Stonehenge paper canvases from tether in the choir loft to the main floor of St. Josephats, nineteenth-century Catholic church in Cleveland, 15 feet (170 inches) below. I stood alone, looking up and feeling small, hearing the echo of each breath and footsteps in this reverent space, which was mine for two months.
St. Josephats was a thriving Catholic Church until the threads holding its community together were slowly unraveled to reconnect elsewhere by the tectonic forces of cultural shift, globalization, ethnic diversification and urban flight. In a new life, St Josephats has been wonderfully restored by my friend Alenka Banko as hall for the art and life events. Where better to start visual exploration of the delicate balance between power and fragility in our lives.
This journey in pigments, kaolin clay and graphite forms drew me into a myriad of mixed natural forms. I became embroiled in the tension of dualities: vices and virtues, restraint and seduction, loneliness and awe, the lechery of envy and hate, the eternal hope of transcendence. On this journey, what began as grand became small, and many new pieces and image emerged. The impersonal became intimate. Hate and longing, while ever present, were absorbed in a boundless and resilient world of greater spirits. Yet fragility remains – its power and beauty.
