More about how my art underpins my way-finding
When I paint, it is often without pre-conceived ideas or something I want to represent, but rather it is with a pull to a particular combination of colour, texture, a pattern of light on a landscape, or a hunch. As I progress, I exchange with the emerging work in a way where something will tell me -- "ah, that's not right -- it needs more brilliance, a different shape, or some kind of stroke that evokes energy or movement. Or, that's too chaotic, and while there's a clang of shapes and colours here, there, I want it more quiet." It's often not until a painting or series of paintings are done, and life unfolds, that I am informed more fully about what the painting is pointing to in my life, or in the world.
Cynthia Bourgeault, in her book, Mystical Hope, speaks of Pointe Vierge. This is the place, she says, where creation meets the not-yet-created. And this is the well spring from which mystical hope -- the hope that is not tied to outcome but that has to do with "moving us toward where it is" -- both comes and where it is found within us. When we can dwell in this Pointe Vierge for our guidance, we can know good ways forward.
The art-making process helps me attune to this Pointe Vierge. There are some examples here.
Bright Mystery
The summer of 2024 has been full of colour, bright colours, organic shapes, a kind of reassurance and joy. (Did I mention, that I'm in love?). Out of this work has emerged the overall theme of Hope beyond Hope, as even in this bright chapter in my life, I keep needing to find uplift.
The Ancestry Series -- A Reckoning with my Colonial Inheritance
In 2015, on a trip to Ireland, I stopped in the Burren, where great slabs of limestone are interlaced with tiny plants and flowers carried by glaciers from as far away as the shores of the Mediterranean. The landscape, the light, wind... the percussion sound of feet on that grey rock... it all somehow threw a noose around my heart and I knew I had to return. The next year, I went to Ballyvaughan and the Burren College of Art for a month long art residency. The art was all about contrast, texture, and somehow deep longing. And I became acquainted with the "famine walls", make-work projects -- stone walls that stretched far beyond where anyone had any use for fences -- that my English ancestors had invented so that the starving Irish workers would "have their dignity" when they were receiving food.
This series is part of Witnessing What Is. Turning towards it. Realizing what unconsciously, now more conscious due to this process, still lives on in me.
Gaza Series
I was in Amman in the first part of 2024, and had limited access to art supplies, so I returned to painting with acrylic on canvas. The relentless assault on the people of Gaza was a constant thrum in the background of daily life. The khobezay (mallow) plant that grows tender green in spring -- I was imagining the lucky few in Gaza who were able to forage for them. The ancient olive tree, covered in dust from destroyed buildings... rooted. The old stones of Umm Qais in northern Jordan, overlooking the Sea of Galilee; long memory. And the the mesa beckoning in the distance.
This series evokes a long view -- beyond living memory and beyond what's foreseeable. And, a kind of faith in the life force that has brought us all here.
