Claire Baker: Painting Outdoors from Direct Experience of Body and Earth using Earth and Mineral Pigments

You see paintings.

I see earth.

I see earth moved into and

onto my paintings.

I offer the full resources

of my sensing body.

I move because the bird moves

so you can move.

So we might move together.

To experience each shift:

monsoon forces,

eruption of bird flight,

descent into night.
To sit on dirt in sunshine and darkness.

To be in the company of ants.

To address the air.

To track life with crushed earth.

To acknowledge what I am made of.

To feel the mark of my body on the earth.

To refract matter.

Co-presence in our passing.

To fly with the bird.

To mark its disappearance.
To look long. Hours. Days.

Then out of stillness.

Swift marks.
Earth marked,

Marked by earth,

A fleeting hold,

A slow letting go.
Motion reveals now.

Living forces held.

Being together.

[Body Earth]