You may recall that last spring I shared an acrylic painting of North America that was based upon a dream I had. This next painting is a companion to that painting but is much simpler in design and was completed in just 4 months. At first glance, it looks like a bunch of animals surrounded by a lot of water but take a really good look at it to see if you can figure what the painting is really about. In this next article, I will highlight what this painting is based upon and discuss some of its details.
If you are still trying to figure out what is going on, here a couple hints:
Hint #1: Here is a map that the painting is based upon
Hint #2: Still not sure? How about if we flip the painting upside down?
What I’m hoping you see is the world map and the name of the painting is “The Upside Down Animal World at Sunrise.” The idea for this painting came to me over many years but it started when I traveled to the Far East in the 1990s as part of my Navy service. I noticed in Japan that families used maps that were upside down to learn world geography from their country’s perspective. I was intrigued by this because it gave a totally different impression of our world and looked foreign to me yet was completely accurate. Soon after, I acquired a map from Australia (see Hint 1 above) that I hung up and casually glanced at for many years before it occurred to me that the shapes of the continents reminded me of certain animals.
The most obvious ones were the giraffe that followed the west coast of Africa fairly closely and the puffins that formed Alaska and the east coast of Siberia. In total, I painted 16 animals painted in the region they are found. The list includes:
Penguins in Antartica
Flying Geese in the clouds forming New Zealand
Kangaroo in Australia
Hyacinth Macaw in South America
Alpaca in South America
Puffins in Alaska/Russia
Bald Eagle in North America
Caribou in Canada
Ratsnake in Russia
Tiger in Siberia
White Bellied woodpecker in India
Pandas on Great Wall in China
Magpies in Europe
Snowy Owl in Scandinavia
Giraffe adjacent to Great Pyramid of Giza in Africa
Lemur in Madagascar off the coast of Africa
Other features of this painting include Greenland painted as a green tree and Iceland as a block of ice; I have been to neither country but I’ve been told it’s actually quite the opposite: Greenland is mostly ice and Iceland is mostly green. Antartica is a cloud that the penguins are hanging out on. The Hawaiian and Falkland Islands are painted as birds but I did not include any of the smaller islands in the South Pacific. The horizon of the picture roughly corresponds to the Tropic of Capricorn and the rising sun is beaming directly onto Japan which is the land of the rising sun.
As I mentioned in my painting article from last year, I tend to paint only a few minutes a day as a way to stimulate my creativity muscles for my writing. Creativity is more than just a pleasant and satisfying experience…it’s vital to how our true nature manifests in us. It’s the way we heal each other and witness each other’s common humanity. Once you are willing to let yourself create and make time for it, things will open up for you in surprising ways. As you listen to the creator within, you will be led into your own mystery.