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Contra Eddies
Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”
SOLD
Acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”
SOLD
“Amidst time’s unending flow
Contra eddies form and grow;
And in this transient swirling mist
We upon a knife’s edge exist.”
Contra eddies form and grow;
And in this transient swirling mist
We upon a knife’s edge exist.”
The poem with this painting references my attempt to understand why and how we are here. I try to read theoretical physics books about the universe, and even the occasional piece on quantum mechanics. I don’t profess to understand it all but it helps me in my quest for meaning.
The 2nd law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed system, predictability gradually declines to disorder; everything becomes more random and less organized.
But how then are life forms explained? Life is a complex, highly organized set of systems – but it is temporary; we come into being and then die. So energy is collected from the closed system we call the universe and then returned to the flow of time and space.
I have been looking for an ebb tide in an estuary or river that I could use to express this special condition. While traveling in Maine at the Kennebunk River I snapped this shot which became the basis of my painting. The river is flowing out while the tide is coming in and where those energies meet transient, swirling, eddies are organized, exist for a moment or two, dissipate, and then are created anew. Just like us.