Golden Section, Phi

Golden Section rectangle has the property that if you remove a square from it, the remaining space is another Golden Section rectangle. This is the design format I took as a departure for the series “Phi, Φ”, a series of 36 watercolor collages with a Golden Rectangle format of 5×3 inch on Saunders Waterford paper. Each is divided with it’s square in the upper area. These were created for the simple pleasure and with an impulse to revisit the format I’ve implemented throughout my life in the studio. Nine of  “Phi, Φ” are featured in this year’s Journeys, Small art Holiday Special.

Golden Section, phi, Φ, is considered by many to be the most harmonious proportion. * It can be drawn as a Golden Section rectangle, Golden Section spiral and many geometrical forms such as the pentagon and pentagram. One can observe it throughout nature as the signature of life, such as the spiral in sunflowers.

It has been used for centuries as the ratio of the basis of architectural design. I have been fascinated by the Golden Ratio since 1981 when my brother, an architect, taught me how to configure it. The proportion is 1/.618034. I still refer to the original computer paper on which he drew. Since I wanted to use the proportion for borders, I figured all the ratios in decimals AND fractions, obsessed.

One of the first series I implemented it with was a triptych of miniature oil paintings, “Metamorphosis”. The two vertical paintings have the square on the lower space. The horizontal painting has the square on the left. I had been enamored with Henry Miller’s “Colossus of Maroussi” about his pre-war time in Greece. Also, in love with Isadora Duncan and Vanessa Redgrave’s portrayal of her, they were the models. My friend from New Zealand had just given me a wood mask from Africa that to me represented grounded intuition and instinct. It still has a place of honor in the studio. My daughter scooped the paintings.

In the late 1980’s, inspired by the four corners area of America, I did a series of oil paintings – Cloudscapes, with just a bit of earth shown below the clouds. Cobalt blue and white ruled over the palette. I sold the best one, “Fahada Butte”, shown in the middle of the group below in an exhibit in Boulder. It was then that I realized there are some paintings that are hard to live without, so I kept most of the others. Happily, I pause to gaze at “Haystack Mountain” hanging in the studio.

Working at the Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Foundation in 1991 as a volunteer was an honor to be in the presence of eagles, hawks and owls that were being brought back to health in North America’s largest flight cages with Sigrid Ubleger, a raptor angel now. I did healing work with some in the ICU. I marvel remembering the look of love coming from the eyes of Grandmother, a golden eagle, only 6 inches away. Scrub down the walls of the eagle’s flight cage? You bet, happy to do so while gazing up as they land above me! Working in there I found the feather in the painting below. Sigrid always implored us not to take any feather, as they were set aside for Native Americans. But she did let me take a photo. Later I noticed that the way I shot it was aligned with the front range mountains in the distance from Broomfield. There are a few more trompe l’oeil elements in it. The square on this Golden Section rectangle is on the right. All the pigments in the painting were earth piments I ground into oil paint.

A few years later I painted many panels for the Home of the Ancestors, as I call the series, based on Celtic values and traditions. Most of them were oils on 16×20 inch canvases. When it felt appropriate to convey the feeling with a Golden Section rectangle, I would place it within. That’s what I did with “Imbolc – Mid-Winter”. The tree branches delineate the square. There is a starry Golden Section spiral inside the rectangle.

See the Golden Section rectangle within “Dragonfly”, painted this summer?

*I like to think that this same harmony extends to the Golden Word.