The Horizon I have Been Dreaming

 

During my youth I daydreamed and used imagination to make simple pencil drawings. I often drew a road beginning under my feet extending toward the horizon, getting smaller until at last disappearing there.

Even now, as an artist many decades later, I make paintings with disappearing roads, paths or rivers in a landscape.

I have a passion for street photography. It takes me on thoroughfares across the globe. I begin with a known place underfoot and start traveling—soon to disappear into the horizon of the unknown. I feel free.

Erice, Sicily, Italy

When I am making street photos, surprise is my ally. I look for the odd, or combinations of elements that combined make for a visual poem.

Venice, Italy

As I grow older, my road steadily nears an unseen and mysterious end.

Central India

I look forward to meeting that horizon I have been dreaming of all my life.


More art of: Steven Boone

Songs Of The Spirit

Caye Caulker, Belize

When I leave the United States in a few weeks, it will be an inner journey as well. Landscapes, peoples, climates and customs will differ as I visit France, Italy, Egypt and other parts of Africa. Like in a dream, fantastic surprises will come. A kaleidoscope spinning produces new chance combinations of light, shape and color. So will be my experiences. What paths to follow?

"Listen with heart and soul to the songs of the spirit, and treasure them as thine own eyes." —Baha'u'llah

Paris

Before I left home on my first circle of the globe, I had a dream where I heard a pronouncement spoken into my left ear: "The vessel he entered was a grand confusion between his world, and the world outside him." I awoke immediately, contemplating the prophecy concerning my upcoming sojourn yet puzzling over the words.

Granada, Spain

The strange divination proved true. From the start, beginning with my arrival in the all black community of Dangriga, Belize, I felt as if I stepped into DREAMING. My province became unknown and surprises occurred with each hour and day. All became a grand confusion between my world and the world outside. Borders fell. I happily abandoned former identifications, such as nationality, race, social stature, religion, etc. Oneness prevailed.

I came to call it THE DREAM.

Something Enchanting About A Road

Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. -Robert Frost

There is something enchanting about a road that starts under my feet and leads out toward a horizon and disappears. My earliest memories of drawings are doodles I made in school when I put pencil to paper and drew a horizontal line in the middle and then two lines begun on either side of the page that ran side by side together vertically—getting closer until they disappeared at the horizontal horizon. How magical that something under foot can continue forward and disappear even as you stand upon it. It beckons curiosity. And sometimes, as on a long journey, it continues extending in front, offering surprising panoramas along the way.

Any environment that stops me, including tangled jungles, cities with dead-end streets, subdivisions that curl in on themselves, labyrinths, jail cells, will make me uncomfortable. I notice I get uneasy at the ocean after awhile. There is no road into it! It is impassable and stops me in my tracks. Perhaps the great ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, (French: 11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) would take exception and say, ah, but there is a way in, but no road!

I am not easily confined. Maybe I've inherited tendencies from my ancestor, the famous American explorer and outdoorsman Daniel Boone, (November 2, 1734 – September 26, 1820). If you see the only known portrait of him, we look alike!

In my work I also break confines. Frequently I will make something entirely new and out of character. When people come in my gallery, a common remark is surprise how one person has made such a variety of art.

I have started upon the imaginary road I drew as a child and kept going—traveling completely around the globe twice now.  Moving in one direction, I arrive back to where I started, and that is magic.

Roads and paths continue to show up in my art and photography. In some ways, my writing too.