Embrace, oil on canvas, 24 x 36"

 This painting was quite a project. I had expected it to take two weeks. It took three months. Granted, I did some less involved works in between stages. A works as monumental as this requires rest periods.

I didn't realize at the onset of the project what a magnificent monster it would become. There are a dozen ways it could have gone, and this, I think, is the best of all possibilities.

This piece is bright and beautiful, fun and whimsical. Much of my recent works have been subdued and calm recently. This painting is about energy and movement. To be embraced and embrace life in full acceptance and celebration even though the outcome isn't assured. 

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 Artist Statement for Forest Guardian Series:

Remember that we are of the earth. There is a legend among the tribes of South America that there are plant spirits that look humanoid. They guard the forest and its secrets. I have a friend who saw one once. She said it looked like a human tree.

I saw an aboriginal painting of a family. The mother had branches that spread out and connected to all her family members. The Hawaiians liken the family to the Taro plant and it's intertwined roots. Ohana means family, the root word oha refers to the roots of the Taro, the staff of life.
These stories link us to the plant word and so do my paintings. I wish to celebrate and protect our connection to the world. I created the Forest Guardian Series  to illustrate this message.

These are pyrographic (wood burning) works on wood panel. Painted in Oils.

Forest Guardian, oil, 11 x 14"

     My first painting, “Forest Guardian”, is of girl warrior who looks beseechingly at the viewer. She is strong and fragile like our tenuous connection to nature. On her head is a bird's nest 

Thousand Years Solitude, oil, 11x14


 

 “Thousand Years of Solitude”. The woman is immortal, made of flesh and alabaster. She keeps her face to the sunshine. She's waited to long that weaver birds make a nest of her hair and fungi grow like a gowns ruffles. When will she wake? What wisdom would she bring us of the silent forest?

Tree Spirit 8x16"

 “Tree Spirit”, I am still figuring out. She's half in this world and the other. Let's say that she can only be seen by the worthy and she doesn't know whether to turn towards you to speak or turn away and disappear. Her head supports a tree and home to an Owl, symbol of wisdom.

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Artist Statement for “Daphne Awakens”, Oil and Gold Leaf on canvas, 24x36”

As the ancient story goes, Daphne was a spirited, marriage-hating young huntress. When Apollo beheld her, her arms bare, her hair in haunting disarray, his heart was set ablaze and he set out in pursuit of her. Daphne fled, and she was an excellent runner. Even Apollo was hard put to overtake her; still, he soon gained. Daphne saw her father's river and cried out to him to help her. Her father transformed her into a laurel tree. The story ends with Apollo honoring the tree.

I am sure Daphne didn't expect to become encased in a tree. She probably felt it was quite unfair. To this thought I have decided to finish her story happily. The spell her father put on her wears off. This painting is the moment she realizes her human self again.

Being encased in a tree is a haunting archetype I have found. It speaks of imprisonment and protection; also to vulnerability when this is stripped away.
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Kali Maal in Pink Painting

Oil, Acrylic, wood burning 16 x 20 "

A Tantric expression of the Kali Maal. She is the liberator of souls from the material. Not only death of the ego and the body, but also the life bringer, the regenerative force.
With her right hand she beckons us to have our minds cut from us, and the blood of life collected in a golden cup. The cup is the primordial womb. There are strands of gold feeding into her like the web of energy that is woven by the fates. Tantra means to weave. She is the doorway and the weaver of fate.

She supports and creates the material from which your soul is liberated from. All is divine.

I meet people that believe there is evil in creation when what is evil is often just being stuck in illusion. This fearsome Goddess wears the skulls as trophies for all the souls she has liberated. Death is not to be feared. What you think is your dome is often only a doorway to greater understanding.
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The Icon of Mother and Child Reimagined

This, to me, is the ultimate depiction of the Madonna. Her yoni is showing to indicate that she is not a virgin. Virginity, historically speaking, wasn't venerated by matriarchal cultures. Before the spread of patriarchal religion beginning around 3,500 B.C.E. virginity was no big deal because the head of the house was a woman, and therefor all her children were known. When the power shifted to the male, he found that his wife's fidelity was important because he wanted to be supporting his seed.

Religion fallows the needs of culture. Now that the sexes are coming nearer to equality, a state I hope for, control of female sexuality will be less important.

The Virgin Mary, who was modeled after a very sexual Goddess, will regain her private parts and the power contained by them.

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Artist Statement for "Lotus Blossom"; Depiction of the Goddess of Past, Present, future, and Fertility

 I invented this Goddess  as a combination of Vishnu and Venus emerging from the sea. Like Vishnu she is dreaming the world into being. Like Venus she is born from the water and is a Goddess of love. The lotus that feeds off the mud of the material to emerge through the water of consciousness supports her. Her yoni is exposed, a symbol of the portal through which we pass into and out of this world.

To me sensuality is divine. That it has been demonized by the repressive religions I find a great dishonor to the Goddess.

Now, I do not actually believe that Gods and Goddesses exist, except as important archetypes. They are images of our best and also worst potentials. I create images that celebrate the whole being, healed and whole.


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Artist Statement

Daphne's Awakening

Is the other half of the story yet untold by legend. As it was, a long, long time ago, Daphne was a headstrong huntress of deer primarily. 
She was spotted by Apollo, the rake of the ancient world. He was used to getting his way with the ladies. However, as he approached, sweetly calling her she slipped away. Se he gave chase, and she was hard pressed to outrun him.
She called for help form her father the River, and he in his infinite wisdom, turned her into a laurel tree. Which Apollo worshiped to the end of his days.
Yet she remained forever imprisoned for a crime she did not commit.
In this painting I free her to walk among us once again. This is Daphne returning to herself as maiden once more. May these times see her as a woman in her own right.

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