Heavy Joy
2021 — 2023
Heavy Joy
All through the Pandemic I have been drawing murmurations — first of birds in their instinctually driven flight patterns and now of creatures who can’t fly in ordinary reality. Initially, I called these drawings “Heavy Things Made Light.” As I drew them, I started researching positive emotions such as joy, hope, curiosity, inspiration, gratitude and the awe that comes from feeling deeply moved by an experience that is beyond one’s own self or making. The latter is expressed by the Sanskrit word “kama muta” meaning “moved by love.” Kama muta is not a singular emotion but is made up of a cluster of emotions that resonate in our body and soul. In western terms, the word “awe” has been used to express this self-transcendence, albeit only in a spiritual context.
Hopefully my drawings evoke awe, their huge scale is meant to exaggerate what might be passed over ordinarily. I aim to not only make you look but to make you get out get out of your own way and experience something that should not be happening — a murmuration of life-sized baby elephants above your head in mid-air joyfully floating, soaring, flipping, gliding, without self-consciousness. If one of the effects of joy is to counteract the pull of gravity then there is levity in absurdity and a resilience in perseverance that rewards us with invisible wings.
This series is called “Heavy Joy” because I wanted to share these drawings as my personal pathway for the reclamation of joy after the indelible losses and grief of the Pandemic. I did not choose elephants — they chose me — and the drawings happened at break-neck speed.
