Long Shadows of Empirical Knowledge- Rural Landscape by Tracey Grumbach

About this image: Empirical evidence is the knowledge acquired by the senses and alludes to Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Anyone who has taken high school or college philosophy is familiar with the story of the shadows and the cave...a philosophical statement about solely relying on your senses to create a version of truth. As I was taking a walk with my kids the other day, I came across this scene as the sun was beginning to fall low on the horizon. I loved the way the shadows of the trees cast extremely long shadows across the winter field, causing stripes of golden-reddish brown and black. I also loved how the house over the hill was just peeping out above the ridgeline, partially hidden by the rolling hills of Maryland's landscape. This time of day is divine. Anyway, I digress...coming across the scene, I was immediately reminded of my college philosophy class so many years ago and the Allegory of the Cave. It struck me that the allegory was so applicable to today's world and how we choose to create truth only from our senses...what we see and hear. Now days what we see and hear comes mostly from the media. If one believes only what one sees and hears from the media, which many people do, then one is creating their own separate truth based on the "shadows" presented to them by the media. Of course, shadows are not true reality. The trees in this image were rather average size trees but because of the angle of the sun, the shadows reached far longer than their true height. Just as the bias and angle of the media creates a "truth" that differs from reality.

Just as I said the other day in a post, I think nowadays we have stepped away from our true nature and rely too much on technology to gather our truths. We are much further away from being quiet within ourselves to trust or even hear our own gut instincts. We are bombarded with "truth" 24 hours a day 7 days a week and it is all just noise. God created us with amazing instincts yet we are so far removed from that quiet voice within us that we can't hear it.

Anyway, this was not meant as a philosophy lesson, but rather a look into what my brain thinks about when I create. I really do see symbolism in almost every single piece of art, and this one is no different. Some see a pretty winter landscape, but for me, it represents something much more deep, as almost all of my art does. Sometimes when people come see me at the gallery and ask about the meaning of a piece or ask why I titled something the way I did, often they are surprised that there usually is a very long and thought out story behind each one.

Perhaps I just think too much.

Have a beautiful weekend. I am heading to Arts By the Bay Gallery today for my shift to work, so come on out and let's chat about art and thinking too much!  I will be there from 2:30PM until 6PM (I believe.) Otherwise, I will see you here on Monday!

xo