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Arts – Earthly Iridium and my Creative Process
“K-Pg Boundary,” Jackie Dorage, oil on canvas.
Throughout the earth is a thin band of Iridium—an element denser than iron that’s only found in large quantities at our planet’s molten core. It rests among the dirt and rocks, accompanying them on their slow techtonic trip to form mountains and canyons, make earthquakes, and re-define oceans. Visible as a black line etched among the earth tones, the strip of Iridium, known as the K-Pg Boundary, sits as a relic of the asteroid that decimated the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago.
There it is, sliced and shuffled into our ground, bookmarking geologic time, reminding us of our blind kinship with the universe, and flippantly noting the irrepressible facets of life.
What do you do with information so large in scale and grim in outcome? How do you cope when you’re reminded of the magnitude everything? For people naturally inclined toward the sciences and math, the answer would be a life of testing questions, fixating on the rational, and inspecting the unknown with a meticulous eye. They have it so lucky. As for the rest of us, we can turn away, look toward religion, or have incredible zen-power to accept the unknown and be OK with our limited mental capacity. For me though, I’ve attempted to deal with it creatively.
Here we are, in a world completely made up of elements that got spit out by an exploding star, flung through space as an asteroid sling-shooting around on gravitational forces, colliding and tumbling until it crashes on an earth, exploding into stardust all over again, mimicking its creation and dusting a new land with space-made elements. They settled, reacted, heated, cooled, and connected to create cells, microorganisms, DNA, fins, sensory glands, antennae, eyeballs, stomachs, sex, bones, brains, societies, culture and technology. Through all of this, the building blocks have stayed the exact same—the same in history, formation, and structure—but given a unique set of circumstances. It’s somewhat common knowledge and a familiar pop-science narrative, but the simplicity and scale of it will forever be mind boggling.
All I ever need to inspire a creative mindset is to expand my thoughts outward and upward. I envision the earth as it is—a malleable space rock, pulled and tugged by the moon and sun, with a magnitude of diverse creatures fumbling around on its surface, relatively unaware of anything outside of them. With this macro way of thinking, the world is a spectacle to be explored, a pallet for the imagination. But whether your interest is in nature and science, like mine, or in society, politics, or the psyche, ask questions and find answers. Whatever your topic, research, learn, imagine, and create–be a scientist, and use your canvas as your lab.
The K-pg Boundary, quilting our planet in super-nova explosion dust, acts as a visible testament to the incredible complexity of life and death that space has given us. To be creative is to not be disillusioned, and for me, space, earth, and nature give me more than enough intrigue to last a lifetime.
