Beautiful Ravens

 Featured image: Evening at the Feeder

Tilted purple black neck
they watch her as she
watched them, Tilted heads purple-
black necks stretch Beautiful 
ravens, Beautiful ravens.

She Comes

 Featured image: Miracles of All Things Natural

she comes
sunlit silent grey stoic
rock billions of years old
moss covered boulders
water breaks as she passes by
fresh, clean fragrance
tumbled rocks on the hillside
stairways of stone
chaos and order all in the same place
nature

Sunday Morning

 Featured image: Sunrise in the Morning at the Lake

Sunday morning
      God's day
sun rises slowly over
      the horizon
still waters
pink sky
orange lines
lime green
accent

The Circle

 Featured image: Circle of Life

The circle

     Infinite

Space

      Infinite

The circle

     Universal

   Divine

     Scared

No beginning

No end

     Balance

      Unity

Lacking

 Featured image: Gifts from God

If we allow 

ourselves to think 

others are lacking …

lacking 

      essential …… whatever’s….

       …truths…

       aren’t we

boxing ourselves in?

Interval Breaths

 Featured image: White Feather

I am always waiting for what gives me that deep deep interval breaths. 

Today this surprise happened when I saw a beautiful white feather fall. 

Moving --- through pink sky and finally becoming part of

Whiteness.

I listen

 Featured image: Feel'n Fortunate

 

I listen

I think

      She is saying

     what she personally

thinks.

How she 

thinks….

      Is not

what I think

      I feel

she is saying

      listening personally

      thinking personally

Drifiting

 

Featured image: As the Wind Blows

drifting

      southerly

eagles wings

       slowly

       tilt

currents of air

      moving

      invisible

The Gift of Tears

 

Featured image: Seasons

the gift of tears

       frozen on skin

sadness

NO

powerful

joy

      tears…

      burdens

released

she weeps

The Southwest

 

Featured image: Raven's Spirit

I tell and create stories for all the works I create. They are personal stories about my life. I believe that stories are our wealth. No money, diamonds, gold, silver or what have you, but stories. Our history. The stories we create become our history. I love hearing stories from others about their lives, and the lives of others who are important to them.

Recently I traveled to the southwest, Tubac, Phoenix, Santa Fe, Sedona and Taos. I gallery hopped in all those towns, asking about the stories the artists were telling in their work, both 3 dimensional and 2 dimensional. At first I tried to visually read the artists’ stories but then I found that I really needed to do some research. I started asking questions about the artists’ visual languages. I researched and bought books on the visual symbolism in their works. I am still researching – their pictographs, the symbols they put on their clothing, drums, shields, decorations.

I was especially drawn to their fetishes. The first fetish I saw and bought, just because I liked it – turned out to be a major piece. There were fetishes tied to the back of a mole. And another one was of two ravens tied together with a turquoise piece on their backs, the fetish. The women who sold me the work told me about the differences between ravens and crows, or black birds. Ravens mate for life, crows do not. Ravens travel along or with each other, crows do not travel in clusters, groups. I loved the story. And I loved that the story was being told repeatedly. For me, that is what art is all about – the stories, mine, and the other viewers of a work. Stories, our histories. Just glorious.

Returning home, I am beginning to read all the books I picked up along the way. I am re-immersing myself into their culture. It is hard because I felt differently when I was there. Loving their culture and what they were saying. I know my future work will reflect this trip for a long time – my head is just spinning. The first thing will be sketches of Ravens in different postures. I am lucky to have two ravens visit my feeder almost every day. I am so excited about it.

Two Ravens

 Featured image: Ravens in the Backyard

Imagine sitting near a snow drift that covers over your head.

Blending with pearls falling from the sky.

Two ravens at the end of the path.

Traveling

 

Featured image: Forever

Before I left for our southwest trip I was researching the Celtic art.  Especially their knots.  The symbolism within the Celtic knot is that all things are interconnected, women together.  That means the good as well as the bad are woven into the knot.  I wonder if all things are intertwined. What was the thing that held the knot together?  I came up with the conclusion that it was faith.

Faith according to the online dictionary is:  complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Faith is also according to the online dictionary is a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.  Faith isn’t really a visual, that it is just something believed in and this belief allows us to imagine and create work that illustrates it; like the Celtic knot.

Tones and Textures

 

Featured image: Sun, Tree, Water

Landscapes quietly absorb the tones, textures and rhythms of our living.

Glistening

  Featured image: Big Pine and Chickadee

glistening

      droplets….. frozen

      sun……

      pine…..

covered in 

      beauty

Our Space

Featured image: Red Tailed Hawk

My commitment in life is to be constantly creative and to encourage others to live creatively.  Think about it….. If we all live creatively and valued creativity, how different the world would be.  

My commitment to my work is to always challenge myself and be creative. That means I want my work to be filled with the spirit of freedom, the spirit of individual freedom and that the spirit of the collective is freedom. Freedom of spirit and spirit’s vision.

How does an artist create freedom in their work? It depends on how an artist defines freedom. Imagine how freedom would be if we all lived in spaces that are surrounded by our concept of freedom. Our spaces that are created by the creator, ourselves and not another.

The Doors We Walk Through

 

Featured image: Wolf

Is your space, the one that surrounds you all the time, filled with new insights, new perspectives, new examples, new options, new alternatives, and new doors to walk through?  If not, perhaps you have to think about your choices, the ones you make personally so that your space, the one that surrounds you, is filled all the time with new insights, new perspectives, new examples, new options, new alternatives and new doors to walk through.