divinely inspired...
After many years of travel, I was empty. Then it all began in 1996 while living in California pregnant when I had an overwhelming urge to paint. I painted the entire house, including the twenty-foot ceilings, and then repainted it. Finally, my neighbor, an art major, came over with some paints and a canvas and this was the beginning of knowing the Goddess…. at that time I painted many things, but it left me feeling awkward and wrong. It wasn’t until I painted a large female body that I became somehow settled again. When I tried to paint other things, the feeling became wrong again. When I returned to painting the female figure, I felt right again. So, I continued.
However, all my goddesses were headless. I would paint a perfectly shaped head and feel this horrible feeling. As soon as the head was off, I felt right again. It wasn’t until years later, after many headless goddesses that I realized her had was cut off because she had no ego. She was archaic, primordial and compassionate…”
“Her Essence represents the mysterious life-providing force within all things. Her soft essence is harmony-bound, it is what moves us towards harmony in all aspects of our life."
ARTIST STATEMENT
The Spirit of the Great Mother, known by many names, metaphorically represents the mysterious and loving life-providing source from which we put forth from which exists within and around all things Early cultures metaphorically recognized this source as a Great Mother due to its ability to perpetuate existence along with its emotional traits of compassion, beauty, sharing and service which manifests in various ways within all that is.
Her ’essence’ creates harmony as it renews nature, alleviates death through rebirth and pilot’s individual direction by moving all inwardly through feeling towards a joyous expression of life. I herald the Sprit of this Great Mother as the bringer of peach by manifesting Her Love through us and feel my paintings are a meta-language for Her gentle way.
Some of my paintings have a black background – in early times black represented the color of fertility – the womb where life emerged from nourishing soils. Red ocher was the vibrant color of life indicating earthly inhabitance and white depicted the end of physical life and a new beginning.
At times I incorporate the lotus to represent the great mystery of Her ‘being’ which lies behind existence. The roots of the lotus connect like umbilical cords to Her great womb where impulse births the bloom. One cannot point directly to the Great Mother, She is invisible, detected only in the arc of a stem or the fragrance of a bloom.
Almost all of my Goddesses do not have ‘heads’ as the Great Mother is the feeler – the ‘knower’ – and not the thinker (represented by the head). She is the body’s innate intelligent system that takes over when the mind shuts down. She is the over-riding impulse that directs when the mind does not know or cannot comprehend its situation. She is the non-thinker or knower providing direction when all appears lost.
My paintings enable the observer to allow the soft and gentle truth of their own being to rise to the surface. Each painting is a personal reminder of the gentle mystery behind life, a mystery born through and nurtured by a grand and loving essence that moves like the spirit of a great mother.
