setting the foundation and opening to grace

For many years I studied a Yoga that began each practice with the words set the foundation and open to grace. In general, setting the foundation has to do with the body parts that touch the floor, while opening to grace becomes the mental underpinning for each posture. Think intention and receptivity – alignment between physical and mental
(the heart comes into it all but I won’t get into that now).

The last few weeks I’ve laid out the foundation for a new work on paper. It is a life-size study of my father. One could think with as many skeletal systems as I’ve drawn, this part would be easy. It’s not. It begins the commitment to carefully observe and render detail. This is the start of my 7th full-body portrait work.

Last week I outlined the form, set the clavicles, ribcage and some of the backbone. My dad has a broken clavicle and he has a large ribcage. Now I work on sacrum, pelvis, legs and feet. I spend most of the day working on the structure of the feet. I’m setting foundation. I don’t know how I’ll do this but I intend to keep the bones as the focal point of the composition.

The bones support and protect the organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals and enable mobility. At birth we have over 270 bones and as we enter adulthood we have 206.

Bones symbolize foundation and are associated with enduring truth.