“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I was young I felt sure I would be an artist, although I did not yet particularly want to be an artist. If you had asked at the time I might’ve said something like veterinarian, spy or gymnast. I drew often because it came naturally to observe and I felt compelled to translate the beauty contained in so many nuances. I felt moved by the energy in simple things- the mulberry tree I considered my best friend, animals, shapes the wind might make. Each of these things contained an essence of life and I wished to know more about whatever that was. All of nature seemed to harbor clues and messages sprawled in broad daylight. Dendritic patterns in leaves forming paper-thin, stained-glass windows of green as chloroplasts captured sunlight to convert to energy. I imagined it flowing through the leaves of my tree. A river moving cells into patterns that branched and stretched for light as deeply as they reached into the dark earth. Twisting into shapes I noticed mirrored by rivers on maps, currents of lightning and the veins under my skin.
As I initially pursued a degree in psychology, I was fascinated to find that the nearly hundred billion neurons in our brain likewise branch into dendrites which receive chemical signals (neurotransmitters) propelled by the electrical impulses which animate our nervous systems. There seemed to be far more to the interconnectivity of things than I could grasp and I sensed if I could learn it and listen closely enough, we might be able to understand each other and perhaps communicate.
I quickly learned I have not been remotely alone with these suspicions. That many civilizations and individuals within have explored these questions, developing close relationships with their earth teachers. Relationships that have shaped their words, stories and songs. I learned how many nations have cultivated in unique ways, the art of listening to Life and been moved to tend it’s expressions on earth in ways that nourished their communities as equally as the mountains, waters and plains. This is not to say any particular people have not been flawed or human along the way. This seems to be an occupational hazard. Rather a recognition that First Nations have developed with the land for thousands of years; forming connections interwoven as succinctly as the sunlight has fed the trees which produced fruits and seeds that sustained a hundred generations of families.
Painting for me has been less a passion in and of itself and more a conduit for that which truly moves me; a love for the great mystery of life, land and it’s expressions which have so often been my truest friends and family. My wish is that whatever I make may be a gift to the slow unfolding of that listening, that it may inspire more of the same for others, and I thank you very much for being a part of that.