Medium: Watercolor on paper
Date: 197? , 2025
Delicate Equilibrium
This week’s piece, Delicate Equilibrium, is a visual meditation on interdependence, tension, and balance—both within nature and the self. It is a vertical narrative, where each creature and element stacks upon the next in an improbable but necessary order. At the top: a spider, poised atop a radiant flower. In the middle: a wide-eyed frog, contemplative and almost human in its quiet resolve. And below: a whale-like fish, gliding through dreamlike waters. Everything is held together by a singular, snaking stalk—part stem, part umbilical cord, part lifeline.
The inspiration for this meditation lies, in part, in a friend’s farm pond in New Jersey—four acres in size, surrounded by 100 acres of woods and charming clusters of flowering bushes. It was a great place to visit and to swim. The water was full of fish gliding against our legs. Frogs were surrounding the edges of the pond using their loud voices. Across the pond were colored lotuses. Sometimes on the lotuses there were very large colored spiders. This was a beautiful balance of nature. In the very near distance, we heard the water from the trout stream. At little further on we could hear the waterfall tumbling down the side of the mountain. This was nature in its purest equilibrium: gentle under the warmth of summer, yet constantly in motion, vital and whole.
Symbolic Elements and Visual Design
The Spider and the Flower: The spider, traditionally a symbol of patience and cunning, rests unnervingly on a flower—an emblem of vulnerability, beauty, and fleeting time. Its placement atop the composition positions it as a paradox: danger nested in delicacy. The flower’s yellow and white petals radiate outward like a sun, suggesting life-giving energy, while the spider’s red-tinted legs inject a note of menace into the light.
The Frog: Positioned at the center, the frog is both observer and participant. Frogs are liminal creatures—living between water and land, transformation, and permanence. This frog, with its almost anthropomorphic expression and clasped hands, anchors the emotional tone. It seems to understand the risk of imbalance, the fragility of its placement between predator and deep sea.
The Whale-like Fish: At the base swims a serene blue presence, eyes wide with a kind of quiet awareness. Symbolizing the subconscious and the vast unknown, it provides a foundation for the rest of the scene. Yet even the depths are not free from the chain of connection—this creature, too, is entwined in the shared cord of existence.
The Yellow Stem: This single line links everything—the root and the reach, the water, and the sky. It twists through the composition like fate or time, uniting predator, prey, plant, and reflection into one surreal yet cohesive whole.
Techniques
This watercolor work relies on gentle washes and soft gradients, invoking a dreamlike quality. The careful outlining in fine ink holds the imagery together, acting almost as the "web" that prevents the surreal from dissolving into chaos. The palette is intentional: soft blues and greens for calmness, juxtaposed against warm yellows and reds for tension and vibrancy. The verticality of the composition adds to the sense of suspension—everything is both rising and falling at once.
Closing Reflection
There is a quiet anxiety under the surface of this piece. Everything is still—for now—but it could tip with the slightest shift. The frog’s expression becomes our own: a mixture of wonder, caution, and weary acceptance. It evokes that fragile moment of holding your breath, unsure whether the balance will hold. Yet there’s also serenity in the interconnectedness. Nothing exists alone. Each form supports the others, willingly or not.
Delicate Equilibrium reminds me that every existence is layered within another. We are suspended in a web of relationships—natural, emotional, spiritual—and the balance of one affects the harmony of all. Even in stillness, tension remains. But perhaps it is that very tension that holds the world together.
As M.C. Escher once said, “We adore chaos because we love to produce order.” And so I paint not to resolve the chaos, but to witness it—its beauty, its danger, and the fragile ribbon that ties us all.
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