When I go through the world, I notice that everything has its own pulse – the people, the plants, the trees, the animals, the birds – and if we get quiet enough we can hear each other’s drumbeat. If we keep listening we’ll move to the same rhythm.
Do you notice that?
In my art when I try to find this drumbeat, this pulse, this spirit – I try to find something that connects me to others, my culture to other cultures, my mind to my body. I mostly use an object that I can hold in my hand which I will then photograph and use in a collage repeat on canvas. As an example: I used a smoking pipe in my series “Pipes”.
The Sioux tribe believes that a smoking pipe, Calumet, represents Creation.
The Stem is a symbol for masculinity and the animal world. The Chamber stands for the femininity and the plant world. The smoke represents the prayers that go up to the gods. I then selected a calabash pipe to connect my world to the world of the Sioux tribe. The pipe pieces made for a beautiful collage and gave my series the heartbeat of creation and its beings. Sometimes, if a new painting in a different series would relate to the earth and its beings (a.k.a. have the same heartbeat), I would use the pipe as a foundation again like in this painting.
Other objects that I’ve used as collages to form a painting’s drumbeat include words, buttons, scissors, irons, labyrinths, knits, hands and even complete paintings of mine.
Have a look around you and spot the drumbeat that speaks to you.
“Healing may not be so much about getting better as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are. Not a better you, but a realer you.”
– Dr Remen, The Human Patient.
~ the real You for all, and all for the real You ~
At the moment I dream of visiting Japan and as the cherry blossom season starts in Japan, I thought this beautiful poetry could lighten up Monday for all of us:
