ARTIST’S STATEMENTS
2016
- I have used my body to express myself all my life, probably because I am dyslexic. Painting and drawing were a relief from communicating verbally. It isn’t that I didn’t know about what was going on as well as the next person, its just that I had a hard time entering into the conversation.
- Now my work becomes a conversation between my body and mind. In the latter part of my life I have found that the conversation or insights seem to do with my spiritual path. Through the patterns or/and imagery comes an understanding of where or what I am doing, not doing, not aware of, or becoming aware of. In my process of painting I feel I must be open to how the paint is directing me or where those lines want to go in drawing. If this sounds mystical I don’t think it is. Most of the time I work on a panel that I can rotate clockwise and counter clockwise on my studio wall.. This enables me to use gravity to move the paint. This reminds me that I am no longer in three dimensional space but on this earth like a pin in a pin cushion in and out or I could be floating, up side down—in other words not always stable.
- Many painters work from intuition, that is really all I am saying. The symbolism comes last as a verbal way to open the work to others and many times is a surprise to me.
2015 CITADINE ART CENTER
- The Cut Series and the Holon Series were originally done completely independently of each other. The Color Hanging Series were inspired from thirty six black and white drawings that were photographed together in a mandala form and called Convergence Mandala in 2009.
- I started the Holon Series in 2012 and was working on it when I went to a piano concert/dance and heard John Cage’s last composition where he goes on and on in a melodic line, melodies not recognizable, every once in a while through the piece the pianist jumps up and comes crashing down several times on the key board.
- Walking back to my community I thought, that is what I am going to do to my old painted patterns – what I am trying to do to my old behavioral patterns – see through them.
But then when I actually did it I realized since The Holon Series was the reiteration of infinite patterns that we all share, they would be partly revealed, if they weren’t already through my own old conditioned patterns of behavior. So must be hung on the walls of the gallery when the Pattern Cut Series hangs from the ceiling. - Also the “back” of the canvas’s could represent my unconscious although later they became much more than that to me.
- As you walk around the gallery you will see that we all can be part of each others’ patterns and that the new patterns are constantly moving.
2012
- For over thirty years I’ve been fascinated by the evolving information from space photographs and science about our place in the universe(s!?) My personal view of space has changed, connected also with my spiritual journey. Bucky Fuller said, It it is no longer up and down but in and out like pins we are on a pin cushion on this planet.” From aerial views of our world to drawings exploring the idea of morphic resonance as postulated by Rupert Sheldrake, I’ve kept exploring – what does it look like? But more appropriately what does it feel like? Of course, ideas and feelings all mixed up and expressed by the body through a personal discipline like painting have only to do with a personal reality, or an exploration of a personal reality. What I am, was and will be is all in the work in some form. Now in practicing Integral Yoga I don’t really have to explain this. My whole is what I am seeking. I try not to avoid anything that comes whether conceptually or in process. Consistency was part of a past discipline, now it is there or not within my work.
- Starting to work, I usually mix three or four colors (a very pleasant time like cooking). Then I use rollers, sprays, sponges, squeegees, brushes, throwing, glazing applying the paint in any way that seems appropriate. I consciously want the viewer to know that my body is creating this work. Actually, my body and gravity for many times I work on a panel on the wall of my studio that I can rotate clock wise and counter clock wise letting the paint move.
- I’ve begun to use a made up calligraphy to denote mind chatter or intellectual activity. It came out of wanting to change the tones and textures in the B/W Congruence Series.
My drive to paint comes out of curiosity: what will this look like, can I make it work, what does it have to tell me, can it be beautiful?
2011 INFLUENCE OF NATURE
- Everything is nature. Nature is everything. For many years I came to this slowly immersing myself in the landscape, then aerial views of the earth fascinated me, pictures of the earth rising from the moon, Bucky Fuller saying “It is no longer up and down but in and out. We are like pins on a pin cushion on this earth.”I was in outer space in my canvases.
- At times my interest has been to use the force of gravity, manipulating the paints flow and the energy through my brush to move the paint to realize a composition. That is what is going on here in the Undersea Series and ‘Birthing’. I’ve also been working lately with the spaces that I found in exploring drawing the visual idea of morphic fields realized in ‘Compliments’.
2010 GRANDMOTHER SINGS
- The work before 2008, the Auro Gaia Series, is an expression of my fascination with aerial views of the earth, the spatial dimension that opened up for me after seeing the pictures of the earth rising from the moon, nature’s patterns. I work by throwing, dripping, splashing, spraying, pasting, stroking, and brushing the paint on the canvas.
- I had met Peter Thurrell in Auoville and enjoyed his long prose poem and slide show on the birth of the Universe, the first stanzas of which, appears below. It introduced me to the Grandmother singing myth of cosmic creation found in many ancient cultures. Then Grandmother just appeared in one of my paintings in 2006 unannounced. I didn’t think too much about it until I began to connect the myth and what I learned from Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of Morphic Resonance. After a workshop with him I made a 20 x 28 cm ink drawing of what I imagined these resonances looked like. The drawing was much too dense so I took smaller and smaller modules out of it and made drawings the same size as the first drawing. Then put the thirty six drawings together in a mandala shape, called Mandala Congruence. There appeared forms that I would not have imagined. I used the forms in the compositions of the Congruence Color Series, playing with color in as many ways as came to mind. My made up calligraphy represents to me The Mind and gave me a play on color that was a surprise.
Long, long ago
In the vast stillness
Before the beginning of time
Grandmother sang a song to herself.
The song arose out of her longing to experience herself in form
As deeply as she knew herself in essence.
It was a beautiful song vibrating with power and delight,
Like the mountain streams it would one day create.
Grandmother kept showing up in 2010. You may not see her as I do but she’s there with her rhythm, vibrations, waves and pulsations, driving our evolution.
2005
- Gaia means the earth as a self-regulating organism. We humans are continually amazed at her interdependent systems.
- As we humans threaten life in the oceans and our own lives with our pollution, her giant earth quake has released untold tons of nutrients into her waters. We are literally of the same substance of the earth and must now become responsible for our survival. On Dec.26th we learned who is in charge of the earth’s process, the earth goddess Prithvi.
- I am especially delighted to find that Shihab’s just published poetry that expresses so much of what I want to do in paint.