Earthen Star, acrylic on rice paper on canvas, © 2024 D. Yael Bernhard
Here’s a small painting I did a few weeks ago as part of a project with my homeschooling art students. The assignment was to create a decorative mandala. For myself I chose a very small canvas – just 8” square – and worked on an idea that had come to me several weeks earlier. The image I had in mind involved diagonal sets of lines at opposing angles, much as is often seen in Australian aboriginal art. I wanted these diagonals to fill triangles that form a star.
I deliberately did not plan the number of points. This is not a Christmas star, nor a Star of David, but something more suggestive of a type of mushroom called an “earth star.” From its inception, this star was not celestial but earthen, to be rendered on a surface the color of clay. A background of brown paint wasn’t good enough – it had to be more rustic. For this I dug up my stash of rice paper scraps, collected years ago when I used to do printmaking and collected many types and colors of printmaking paper. The organic texture of rice paper was so enticing, I kept every unused scrap. This was the very last of my brown rice paper, which I glued onto the canvas in pieces until the surface was entirely covered.
This one-of-a-kind surface gave me only one chance to get it right. I deftly ignored this fact so as not to ruin the painting by getting nervous. I risk failure all the time in my art – and in fact, had already created what I considered to be a failed mandala before I attempted this one (though my young students disagreed). Without trial and error, an artist cannot grow. In my younger years, these failures were quite frequent, and tore me apart. With experience I learned to channel this frustration into a new version as quickly as possible. This enabled me to learn from my aborted mistake, and bring the original idea to fruition.
By definition, a star is not of the earth – a contradiction that stuck in my mind the first time I saw an earth star mushroom. Only the copper metallic paint in this painting suggests light, as well as the star-like design. I love copper, which of course comes from the earth. The interaction of copper and brown intrigued me, offset by black. Earthy colors dominate the painting, except for a touch of pale blue and teal, which serve to create color contrast.
Modern art abounds with contradictions and the interactions of opposites, in both works of art and their titles. This creates an engaging sort of tension. Artists, after all, are allowed to defy logic. That’s a good thing.
A good week to all!
D. Yael Bernhard
https://dyaelbernhard.com
Have you seen my other Substack, The Art of Health? In addition to being a visual artist, I’m also a certified integrative health & nutrition coach with a lifelong passion for natural food cooking and herbal medicine. Now in its second year, this illustrated newsletter explores cutting-edge concepts of nutrition. I strive to make relevant information clear and accessible, and to anchor essential health concepts in unique images. Check it out, and if you like it, please subscribe and help spread the word. Your support keeps my work going!