Everything starts with a circle, like a pond where something emerges from where countless things have taken off and landed. A pond is nearly always round, like the sun or moon or something hung in the house to reflect us to ourselves. A lake is a mountain inverted, but a pond is canvas and cameo to where everything originated. In my neighborhood, in the country, there are two types of walks to take. One, a straight trail where you reach the end and come back past everything you first saw. The second, a circular path where everything is new until you wind up where you began.

Every painting begins as a circle, corners and edges only became important as we imagined ourselves outside or separate from what we attempted to depict. Transformation may take time, but inspiration often arrives in an instant, as unexpected as a single white bird in the center of a large empty grey pond. Ideas too, can arrive opulent and unpredictable as the path of windblown leaves mid-air, or sometimes appear fragile yet furious like the fluttering of a small bird's wings. The heart is a cart kept to collect the fruit of our artistic orchards, both compass and fragile container like a bird's nest. We too bend back resistant branches to protect and encircle what we wish to let emerge.

The cave where creativity is contained is both a circular safe container and a mysterious liminal space, part paradox and part passageway. Art is an artery and also a wounded cocoon that opens reluctantly to our nameless new thresholds. When we allow what is non-essential to sink to the bottom of our consciousness what remains is more clearly able to reflect potential transformation. Seen again, a single white bird floats now on a circle of deep blue. It would be shortsighted to see the blue as the depth of still waters, instead it is an opportunity to understand that color comes from mirroring a limitless sky.

As you read this, infinite orbits spin above us. The truth is, I am expert of nothing but humbled by everything. Maybe the sun is only a hole in the sky that the light gets through, and maybe the moon is actually the sun in a cashmere coat. But everything I know about transformation is because of birds, the bright sounds of bells and the fervent activity of brushes. In my singularity I long for collectivity, connectivity and the words to describe the contents of this room. Perhaps my hesitation to name the bends of life's roller coaster is that doing so will make me more aware of when this ride is coming to an end. A hundred birds flew from a flooded field and you and I are the few who dare to land on the elk's back.


Benjamin Terrell, 2021

Curated by Uwe Henneken