Elizabeth Malunowicz

In 2016 I was granted a yearlong artist residency at the William Steeple Davis home and studio in Orient, New York. I moved there in November when the air was getting crisp. It's a captivating place of color and light, surrounded by Long Island Sound on the north side and several bays to the south, with a sovereign sky dominating it all. I could see the bay from several windows in the house. I watched it obsessively starting in the early predawn light to the last sliver of color in the evening. Sometimes I painted what I saw, but often I stood before it, consuming the beauty.

The sea and sky were all I could think about and that sacred horizon where they meet - a "thin place," where heaven and earth truly kiss. As the seasons passed I absorbed the beauty and fragrance that surrounded me. I walked, biked, paddled, swam and wandered to wherever the wisdom of that place took me. It is now stored in my memory bank, especially the colors. It was a year of learning to trust where I was placed, at a certain time in my life, and how to move from there.