Ground Work

Here are a few pieces of some current work in the early phase. I like how they look strewn out in the wintery light. I feel good enough about these to show them even though they are a bit naked (no color yet) and they aren’t exactly good examples of what I have steeping. That hasn’t emerged yet. The piece on the right comes closest. I’ve been writing, sketching and musing about some different threads of a developing narrative. Playing with some new visuals, though I am pleased to see the big flower and I could never abandon eyes, orbs or seeds. But I realized at a one point that my work has consistently depicted almost nothing manmade except the most basic items: clothing, vessels, a basket, an instrument. It springs almost entirely from a natural landscape. I suppose that’s for various reasons some of which are that I’m a nature-loving girl, I see the natural world as our most basic and common context as humans and I feel spiritually infused by the language of the nonhuman realm. I think it has things to teach us. The metaphors it offers of potential, germination, persistence, growth, balance, etc. are just so rich. I also see Nature as the Feminine (in the Jungian sense, not female necessarily) made physically manifest. So much of humanity’s imbalance and trouble seems to stem from our denigration for that Feminine (the earth, women, mothers, service, the healing arts, intuition, compassion, collaboration, empathy, inclusion, etc.) Since I paint primarily about emotion and spiritual questions that are timeless aspects of being human, using Nature as the context has made sense but I’m feeling a pull to broaden the vista and incorporate new shapes and stories. I have been tuning into my sense of our collective future. What does it look like and how do we get there? I'm not there yet but getting close. Ideas are brewing and that’s where I’ll leave it for now.