Simple and Sacred connection
Writing descriptions for your artwork, trying to put into words what all encompassing feeling and thought goes into creating, is…often challenging. I try to describe what a piece means for me, while leaving the door open for what it may mean for you too. Which may be similar, or may be vastly different. This is something I have been considering a lot this week as I prepare for the {wild+woman} limited edition print release, writing about them, describing them, sewing that red thread of connection between my wild heart and yours. I find myself contemplative. Philosophising. Pondering as I am wandering, wondering as I am ruminating, musing as I meander.
When we are more connected to the world around us, the natural world around us, we can’t help but live more fulfilled lives. In my creative process I find myself feeling into how the natural world informs the way that we live, how we communicate to the natural world, to each other, and to ourselves.
I immerse myself in my creative process while surrounded by trees and birds and butterflies and wind whispers through leaves - even in suburbia. Even so, I long to be in quiet, secret spots, where I can feel a sense of spaciousness, where there is room for deep breaths and even deeper thoughts. Connecting to nature is connecting to my deeper self, to peace and contentment within and without - I am drawn into that wonder. I marvel at the mystery of mosses. I find wonder in wild things. I seek compassion and connection and curiosity, and thankfully, you can find these things everywhere, if you look for them. That deep dark forest is my idyll, but this little suburban block is where I am currently rooted, where I get to unfurl, and where I will flourish until wilder lands become home. The forest is in my heart, and with me every day no matter where I am.
In that same way, Raven Woman, Owl Woman, Hare and Fox and Red Kite Woman are in my heart, with me every day no matter where I am. The conviction, the hope, that we are still part wild creature. That we are still connected to the other wild creatures. If we can just find that red thread to pick back up, and set us free.
Working on these {wild+woman} beauties has been a time of deep peace for me. Working in just graphite, using value, darks and lights and mid-tones together to create form, manifest depth, express life.
Conversations in monochrome.
I want my work to encourage a slowing down, an intentional way of being, of living, to look deeply at the natural world around us, the flora and fauna that is our kin. To be mindfully conscious of the smells, the sounds, the textures of the wild parts around (and inside) us, to build a community that values the same. To value that extraordinary transformation where finding wonder and joy, compassion and curiosity, turns the simple into sacred.
As I shift back to painting this week, wrangling colour as well as value, with simple brushstrokes (and beginners mind) that is what I am taking with me, always. Finding ways to turn the simple into sacred.
