Last year, while walking the Camino de Santiago, I began considering physical and mental pathways. I considered the directions I have taken in my life, the choices I have made and the consequences they have brought. As Pilgrims along the way, we were each faced with many options: a fork in the road with two routes that we had to choose between. Sometimes our decisions were immediate and without hesitation. And other times, they were difficult and we proceeded into the unknown with uncertainty. I was on a trail that nearly 100,00 people walk each year, and yet, despite being well travelled by the others that came before me, my journey was individual to only me.

In his 1889 doctoral thesis on Time and Free Will, Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, Philosopher Henri Bergman put forward the term ‘duration’ which implies that everything is in a constant process of change; a process of tightening and contraction. The past evolves into and penetrates the present. As a believer in free will, Bergson presented that the past is real and future is unpredictable. Inner life’s free flow of time becomes the touchstone of human freedom and individuality.

As I wandered the coastline of Spain, I understood my body to be a place: an epistemological site, where rationalism (justification), empiricism (truth), and existentialism (belief) are created and carried out. When we are confronted with choices, and pause to make a decision, we exist briefly in a liminal space. It is in this space that the inner self possesses boundless limits and power beyond the body. The space between now and future — a paradoxical fraction of a second where a singular choice can exist forever.

In some small ways, art is like the land, shaped by its occupants. I believe, art has two lives. the early creation phase, followed by its existence beyond the studio, away from the artists’s control. When art exists in relation to the viewer, it becomes a stage for the human experience to be subjectively projected onto. New meaning and interpretation can reshape and contextualize the artwork, outside of the artist’s intent.

This is where the resemblance between art and the land separates and we realize that the land is unlike any artwork. The impressions and configurations molded into this dynamic world live on, well beyond any viewer interactions. We are not disillusioned; we know that landscape is not just a beautiful vista or an image, representing nature, separate from ourselves. There is responsibly with just existing in the world. We have the ability to help form it — to walk softly, or to trample over and disrupt it. So although we are only passing by, as guests on our journey, we are reminded that our activity can have lasting effects for future pilgrims. With each step there is thoughtful agency.  We listen to her with respect, learn from her, and are kind to her. We allow her to guide us. And we move through life with love.

These paintings utilize various markers of time to create pathways. They began as washes of pigments, like rivers travelling along the horizontal canvas. They mapped out the topographical indentations of the natural slopping studio floor and the fold lines that the canvas held. These dips, seams, and gravitational pulls all hold clues to the distinctive properties of the materiality in which they come from and the journey they are on. Unpredictable and unique, they took days to dry. By contrast, quick and intuitive pastel, spray brush, and graphite markings are layered on top. Time is called upon to open up, with no conclusion or end, there is no linear or chronological sequence. You can yourself following paths of thought, as the process unfolds on the canvas. You may find yourself in both the present and the past. While the body is stationary, the mind’s curiosity is invited to take a voyage in time, where detours and doubling back are encouraged. Perhaps you wander off the path of imagination? Perhaps time stands still, or speeds up?

There is no straight or clear line into the future. Each individual journey taken is sacred and just as valuable as the next. These unique adventures spiral, and bend, and curve as we approach distant lands. Here we may be confronted with hesitation and uncertainty. These feelings are the side-effects of development and broadening awareness. It is where we find opportunities for growth. Our challenges are our greatest teachers. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. We tread lightly and remain open to her wisdom and power of metamorphosis.

We are all pilgrims on this earth. And as such, life is our pilgrimage.

“in-ter-play”
Sarah Delaney + Richelle Graebeiel

August Studios
1320 E Pender St, Vancouver, BC

Opening Reception
Thursday Nov 13
6-9pm

Friday Nov 14 - Sunday Nov 16
11-4pm daily

Casa Lu, Sur
Mexico City, Mexico
January, February 2025