Liz's entry into Sopie's Spaces

So Spaces, yeah…

Deep breath…

I was all excited about the eclipse (really, eclipses and solstices… Solsti? are big in my house) I was hanging with two of my very best people while finishing this entry (a physics teacher and another who studies physics at university - and is a star). We were looking at pictures and projections for the big day (nope, not at all goofy) so I wanted that to figure in this somewhere (although I was informed that my vision of the coming eclipse was not really an accurate representation and would in no way help me unlock any complex secrets of the universe, nor help me pass IB Diploma Physics).

I had already started the ink drawing at school – this is the view from my room (I work in the middle of a forest in a school that comprises of a number of dinky little huts like you see in the drawing) and there is so much space - I wanted to work in ink because I always see Jemina working away in her sketchbooks and she is masterful and inspiring (Jemina you rule).

Now, the view from my window at school takes in a special tree that was planted in memory of a student (a truly lovely boy) who drowned whilst swimming with some his friends just a few years ago. This was one of the most shocking and fully sad events I can remember and it is something that is still quite present in the atmosphere of our school and the memories of those who are still there.

I think it was Barthes, either in a lovers discourse or the one on photography where he talks about how, quite often the absence of someone can create a uniquely powerful (often more powerful) presence and it was this idea that I wanted to communicate through the composition of this piece. Art can’t restore that which has been abolished or obliterated but it can show you that that which is now no longer present, existed, and continues to exist as a different from of energy.

I also wanted to somehow convey the idea of the physical space that a person leaves behind when they move on to other spaces and places.

It seems kinda crude looking at the finished piece and I don’t know if it can possibly communicate anything like what I was aiming at and I certainly don't compare with Jemina's inking skills but…