Trompe l'oeil

What we see versus what we perceive has been much on my mind this week. First, after hearing a talk at the Wimberley Valley Art League during which Texas State University art professor Jeffrey Dell described his use of maquettes to inform his choices of color, light, and shadow in printmaking. And then again while looking at the sphere and cone shadow studies by Deb Sposa's students over at Artisun.

And so, after some pondering, I decided to revise (re-envision) Southbound 35 Oklahoma Spring to more closely match what I saw versus what my brain wanted to depict (and yes, I know I didn't see square clouds, but Anna Lisa's comment yesterday made me realize each square is like a snapshot impression of the things I wanted to remember) ...

Many stitches were removed and replaced with more lightly stitched overhead power lines, this time guided by a French curve (which I serendipitously found while looking for something else) ...

And still more stitches were removed from the road, although my latest impression will probably require another reworking to get the perspective right before all is said and done ...

But wait, there's more! I also started testing out ideas for Moon Myth in the form of an appliqué sun and a reverse appliqué moon ...

As always, I'm tempted to use the back instead, at least in the case of the moon ...

but it's still way too early in the process to make any hard and fast decisions.

And looking at the magical bit of Deb Lacativa cloth on the dark side of the moon reminded me of the colors we encountered on our journey through the lunaresque landscape of the Meramec Caverns last week ...

dark beauty ...

a false sense of great depth created by the high cave ceiling reflected on perfectly still water ...

and a new appreciation for the limestone structures that may (probably) lie hidden beneath our own home in the hills ...

All this was in my mind as we had our well tested by representatives from the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District a few days ago.  Before they arrived, I dug out the original well drilling records from the first owner of our property ...

I always knew our well was over 900' deep, which in my mind had translated into an imagined weeks-long drilling process. But  informed by our recent travels and thinking of this recent cave discovery in a nearby north Austin neighborhood ...

along with listening as the education coordinator explained the average water level in our neighborhood is 350' below ground, I began to look more closely at the drilling record and started to reconsider. Apparently, after 42' of drilling, there was a free-fall through about 300' of open space and then another 600' of water before the end of the drill touched down on solid rock. So the drilling only took one day.   

Which leads me to believe that our little piece of heaven may actually be perched atop a vast cavern, the likes of which boggles my mind. Could this be? 

Gulp ...