Burning Bright

William Blake wrote around the beginning of the 19th century a poem entitled The Tyger. In it, he included this stanza: “In what distant deep or skies/Burnt the fire of thine eyes?/On what wings dare he aspire?/What the hand dare seize the fire?”

These words encapsulate the challenge and reality of creation. What we have in a chip carving here is the abstraction of an idea about a tiger. Blake talks about the actual being. In both, however, it is clear that creation as we know it is not from nothing (de novo). The beauty to me of Blake’s poem is that he was able to get as close as he did to an actual tiger.

He with his words as do we in a smaller way with our carving draws us toward this powerful, frightening, overwhelming being in nature. This is a needed corrective for us who live too often in a digital world in which all seems to be under our control. It is burning bright.

Burning Bright
13 1/4″ x 4″ x 5/8″
$65