We Drink the Sky
by Elisabeth Effron

We Drink The Sky is about holding a quiet space for one’s whole self. The work was created in an attempt to make peace with what is and gather fortitude to create what could be. 

A few months into the pandemic Elisabeth started making images of the sky. It seemed to be the only thing that wasn’t falling apart. The layers reflect the confusion, frustration and uncertainty of the time. Through the work, she actively attempts to alter and arrange the skyscape, to control the uncontrollable. Pairing internal feelings with external expressions, Elisabeth imagines something different, folding and breaking the space, adding layers and marks, she constructs possibilities and fosters hope.

Rebecca Solnit describes hope as a gamble, [A] bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety…because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.

The photographic encaustic pieces in We Drink The Sky reflect the difficulty and necessity of re-defining meaning, altering priorities, and learning to hold opposing ideas at the same time. Hope doesn’t deny what exists, looking at and rendering the sky doesn’t erase the multitude of crises we face. But it does softly, gently, guide us back to a place where we have the energy and fortitude to face it all. 

We look up for a moment of rest, a course correction, an intentional recalibration, amidst the complexity that is inevitably the human experience.