“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I was young I felt sure I would be an artist. I did not particularly want to be an artist. If you had asked what I wanted to be I would’ve said something like veterinarian, spy or gymnast. I drew often because it came naturally to observe and feel compelled to translate. I felt moved by the energy of simple things- the mulberry tree I considered my best friend, animals, the shapes the wind might make. Each of these things contained the essence of life and I wished to know more about whatever that was. All of nature seemed to contain 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 much as they reached into the dark of the earth. Twisting with shapes I saw mirrored by rivers on maps, the veins under my skin. There seemed to be far more to the interconnectivity of things than I could grasp. I sensed if I could learn it, listen closely enough, we might be able to understand eachother and perhaps communicate.
As I grew I learned I was not alone with these suspicions. That many civilizations and individuals within have explored these questions, developing close relationships with their earth teachers. Relationships that shaped their words, stories and songs. I learned how many nations have learned 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 and 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 sunlight has fed the trees which produced fruits and seeds that sustained generations of families.
Painting for me has been less a passion for the sake of itself and more a conduit for that which truly moves me. A love of life, land and it’s expressions which have so often been my truest friends and family. My wish is that whatever I make be a slow unfolding of that listening, that it might inspire more of the same for others, and I thank you very much for being a part of that.