Saturday, March 19, 2011


 Last official day of winter..spring equinox is upon us, and I'll watch for the rise of the perigee moon in its fullness tonight.  Snow still lies in patches in the woods, at the sides of driveways and roads, and in huge heaps, still,  at ends of parking lots.  I pray for those in Japan, those whose lives have been swept away, the rattle of the repercussions, the big wave.  I pray for family and friends near and far, who are grieving, who are care givers, who are walking slowly down a healing path.
Every spring I am stricken with the grandeur of the returning green world, the life that has lain hidden beneath winter's cloak, the palpable warmth of the sun, and life blood running through all trees.
This charge of energy is at once invigorating and exhausting, after the long winter of silence and still, of non moving and hidden, of slumber and dreams.
My painting has come slowly this winter.  Much time in the studio spent thinking, and pondering, waiting for the next phase, which has shown itself and now I feel like I need long days, unlimited supplies.
In looking back over my work of the last twenty years, I have started to see a journey...

My work has always been about "nurturing the inner life", and our connection with nature, and in the beginning the paintings took on the shape of landscape, but were metaphorical.  The power animals came through and enticing horizons.  It was as though I was looking at this "interior life " as a spectator, while at the same time I was newly mothering and tearing down old houses and building up new.  As time progressed and my daughters got older, my art changed, the horizons disappeared and recognizable forms starting emerging from color fields..at first domestic, simple forms, birds, flowers, vases, beds, then the windows came and doorways, and there was a time when there was always a window or a doorway.  I was deep into motherhood and a partnership, homeownership, yet living on the edge financially and spiritually.  Open to the talk of trees, lives gone on before, my world felt rich and deep, but with a profound sadness and urgency towards the message of beauty and love amidst the daily disregard for these things that I perceived in so much of the world around me.
"When You Find Your Way"
Now after twenty five years I feel as if I have walked through these portals and they have taken me to an even deeper spot.  Not darker necessarily but messier, void of all those recognizable entities in my life, like diving into leaves and burrowing or walking deep into the woods without a trail, or pushing through to a place I have never been, and through my hands the forms take shape, the image arises, the colors speak and I am filled with gratefulness.
We all have this place of newness, the times in our lives when we need to shed a skin, and be open to not knowing.  It is in this place that we can connect to our humanness,  not our faith or religion as separate from ourselves, but the holy that "is" us..the god-like place within us..like the power of moving mountains, the depth of waters, the intricacies of all living things..the life blood of trees in spring.
The earth..our holy place.
And being open to that concept is within each one of us, if we open ourselves to the possibility.

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