Click on image to see larger photograph of each
painting.
Winter Solstice
You can see my deep state
of hibernation in this painting. The air is cold and still. The earth is
frozen. Life within awaits the coming season. And so it was with me as
well. Pregnant with my twins the year I painted it (1978), gaining ten
pounds a month and managing the physical and emotional changes which that
brought . . . was my total existence. As in this image, anything beyond
these foreground issues of physical survival was diffused and far away.
You can also see that my stream of consciousness in the middle ground of
the painting is flat and monotone. Indeed, my concept of myself and my
world was one-dimensional and fixed. I was as shy and uncertain of myself
as the woods on the other side of the stream.
I ventured through my shyness that year to enter two paintings in the Members
Show at the Virginia Beach Arts Center . . . this was one of them. Yet
when someone from the art center called, insisting I come to the opening
to meet the judge, I didn’t know what to say. I stood there with my
hand on the receiver, surveying the kitchen table full of groceries I had
just brought in the door. My hair was dirty, Aunt Agnes had just arrived
for the weekend and the babies were crying to be nursed. “Surely you
must be kidding!”, I said into the phone.
My husband and Aunt Agnes had other ideas. They whisked me into the shower
and out the door in time to make the hour and a half drive to Virginia
Beach. Never before or since, have I ever heard a judge give a critique
at an awards presentation. That night I met one who did exactly that .
. . and what he said affected me deeply.
As Bob Mayo critiqued my paintings, I felt as though he had sat on my shoulder
in the studio . . . or had been in my very soul! He awarded me two first-place
ribbons and invited me to bring paintings to his gallery.
This startling introduction led to a relationship which has nurtured me
as an artist every inch of the way. No matter how busy he was, this man
. . . who had put aside his own career as a sculptor many years before
. . . would stop and critique my paintings. He never gave me any bull.
The result of our conversation was always the same . . . I continued to
believe in myself because he took me seriously.
In the same way Peter Pan brought Tinkerbell to life
. . . by clapping and saying, “I believe in fairies!”.
. . It seems to me that each of us has the ability to do the same. To stand
and clap is to acknowledge the existence of another. To stand and clap
. . . is to say “I believe in you!” To stand and clap . . . is
to wake the hibernating dreamer and bring forth the spirit in two human
souls!
Jardines del Ninos
In 1969, I took a photograph on a
study-trip in Spain. More than a decace later, in 1981 I painted a pastel
from it which expresses the gap between what I 
felt inside and the physical reality of the outside
world.
We had travelled to Santander on the northern coast to see the pre-historic
cave paintings and were to stay with Spanish families. Instead, when we
arrived our bus pulled into an enclosed garden. The sign on the gate read,
‘Jardines del Ninos.’ Our Spanish was sufficient to translate
without the dictionary: gardens of the children.
. . . Kindergarten? Still in shock, we were shown to our rooms. Tiny beds,
tiny chairs, tiny tables, even tiny toilets were not at all what we expected!
This painting expresses that gap . . . between my vision and reality. My
view from the second-floor bedroom window shows the walled garden in which
I would live the first half of my life and a glimpse of a world beyond
it.
Standing in the cave, looking at the image painted by my pre- historic
brother . . . I felt like a little kindergarten girl, unable to communicate
the bigness and wonder of her dreams. While I was somewhat aware of the
gap between my vision and reality, and the wall which separated the two
. . . I had no awareness that my life mission was to learn to dissolve
that wall and bridge the gap.
Shortly after painting this, a man came into my studio and brought the
issue, which would ultimately reveal my mission, right in front of my nose!
As he bound, gagged and raped my body . . . I realized that what he really
wanted . . . was for me to be petrified of him! I began to play the role
of being afraid . . . instantly it was real . . . no sound came out when
I tried to scream as he slit my throat. At that moment I was petrified!
And the wall around me shut everyone and everything else out . . . except
the issue which would bring my mission into clear focus . . . ’How
on earth can I NOT be a victim?’
I struggled with this for ten years. I could hear that I was not the only
one screaming, “Why is the world doing this to me? I don’t want
to be at the affect of the world!”
This is what triggered the healing process!
I discovered if I shifted my perspective . . . choosing to live as if I
had caused all of it, whether or not it appeared to be true . . . I was
able to truly heal! From this perspective, I found that I could express
all the feelings of rage, anger and fear from which I had been running,
as if each emotion was a valuable gift received, honored and released.
And with each release, I experienced the love and peace I so dearly wished
for!
What Slumbers Here?
I was so startled at having created this image
and title so long ago which expresses my slumbering essence, even though
I did not understand the meaning of my own vision, I called my sister in
Kansas to share the story. Carol reminded me that I had given her the painting
and it was hanging in her living room! “I did?”. . . I must have
been more than asleep when I painted this image in 1983! Perhaps I was
totally gone . . . numb! And perhaps I am just now coming out of the coma!
Awakening . . . coming out of the coma,
I felt very, very alone. Each morning I woke with my arms and legs numb
. . . night after night of lucid dreams. Waking after such a deep sleep
was uncomfortable at best . . . and often quite painful. Each week my chiropractor
made gentle adjustments to relieve the pain in my limbs caused by the crush
of my small ideas about myself. And I was downright scared because I could
not see how I would be able to support myself anymore.
In the painting, the story of my awakening begins where your eyes focus
first, in the cold dark water . . . moving across to the other side, warming
starts at the shoreline. The double trunk tree, a symbol of my double vision,
ego and soul, leads the way. The ego, like the deadwood to the right, dies
away and beside it sprouts the flexible, timeless fern . . . the soul.
The space beyond is limitless!
Nearly another decade later, in 1992
an extremely large vision riveted my attention. After returning from a
painting trip in New Mexico, I roughed in the shapes and undertones on
this panel which was five feet tall and over three feet wide. Soon I had
no idea of where to go with it. I became very discouraged and laid it aside.
A year later, a coincidence reopened my vision. A repairman, sent by
the landlady, came into my office asking about “the painting of the
fairy.’” ”I don’t know what you’re talking about,'
I answered him. “I only paint landscapes.” To satisfy Earl’s
urgent curiosity about this painting of the fairy, I walked upstairs to
the studio with him to see. Moving his arms about, he showed me the exhausted
fairy . . . her arms, legs and hair sprawled out across the rocks.
Suddenly I began to laugh and cry all at the same time. As I listened to
this man I’d never met before, describe how terribly exhausted the
fairy was . . . I heard him describing me! Until that moment, I had never
realized how truly exhausted I was.
Of course I was exhausted. I had invested all my energy in trying not to
be a victim of the rape. Six years later, my mother had died after a long
fight with brain cancer. A few months after her funeral, I picked up and
left my husband and sons. Now here I was, nearly ten years later, trying
to carry on as if none of it had ever happened!
“Buck-up, you’re OK. Get out there and support yourself,”
echoed in my head! Crashing against the core of my being, my war raged
silently inside. “Don’t you understand my rage! How can I possibly
express the kind of despair which deadens every nerve in my body? Grief
and sadness have become my life. There is nothing else!” At the time,
there were no words, not even pictures to express how I felt. I was so
alone, and so deathly afraid to move.
A few days later, I completed the painting. The following week Earl returned.
“What happened to the fairy?” he wanted to know. The exhausted
fairy had disappeared and the magical turquoise and lavender sky . . .
representing my lifeline from above . . . had sliced its way down into
the crevice into which I had allowed myself to fall. My view from the bottom
of the ravine was now clear. I could see the steep, rocky climb which lay
ahead.
I see now there was total sanity in
choosing to make the climb myself. How else would I know, than to have
experienced for myself . . . the unlimited power of the human spirit .
. . to heal and be at peace within myself. Now I see why I was so driven
to do it my way . . . there is no other way than my way for me and your
way for you!
My Art Collection
Limited-edition prints
Letters from Earth Mother
Interpretive Guidebook