Gila devotional
The Project
Writings, and glimpses from the field.
“Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.” (Simone Weil)
Gillian Moore
Scoured to Bone
2026
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
22.25 x 22.25 inches
Gillian Moore
Desiccate
2026
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
22.25 x 22.25 inches
Gillian Moore
Cenote
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
15.25 x 15.25 inches
To pay attention is to give something of oneself.
It is to focus consciousness at its locus of meeting with the world. It is to trace the imperfect contours of one's own grasping along the rough edges of perception.
In exchange: membership, more fully felt than stated, in the family of things.
Gillian Moore
Untitled
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
7.5 x 7.5 inches
Gillian Moore
Untitled
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
18 x 18 inches
The work in the studio bears witness to the unfolding of natural process.
I register the our meeting through the fleeting particulars of sunlight and distance. I feel in bone and fingertips the seasons of the land, actively, as one of many worldly creatures whose fate depends on their cycles of drought and erosion. I practice walking our earthen surface softly, noticing.
The paintings follow, a document and debrief.
Gillian Moore
Premonitions in hell's half acre
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
14 x 22 inches
Gillian Moore
Cleave, clutter
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
14 x 22 inches
This kind of attention is not a lofty ideal performed only on Sundays. It is an imperfect daily practice infusing life with quiet, mundane devotion.
Gillian Moore
Untitled (small dwelling-place)
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
7.5 x 7.5 inches
Gillian Moore
Untitled
2025
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
7.5 x 7.5 inches
As drought deepens, pernicious aridity leaves its mark on land and body alike. Grass desiccates, dies, and falls parched. Piñon succumb, wilting brown along the terraces of canyons. Streams seep silent into thirsty soil. The doors open to a mad banquet of flame as dry winds feed lightning fires
Gillian Moore
Untitled (Dwelling I)
2024
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
14 x 22 inches
Gillian Moore
Untitled (Dwelling II)
2024
Oil, wax on Arches oil paper
14 x 22 inches
“We are here to abet creation and witness it,” writes Annie Dillard. “To notice each thing so each thing gets noticed.”
Postscript: Photography
Context, in an ecological sense, is understanding the role of an individual's workings in its larger system. In the ecology of the practice, those looking for an explanation will find such context a meagre substitute. Those looking for insight into complexity will find fertile till.
