Winterscape of Body and Soul

Working the negative space is a natural move if you are an artist that enjoys landscapes during the winter. The blank spaces left from fallen leaves, between branches and stems leave a poetic opening of artistic opportunity. At the same time negative spaces, like winter’s effect on the landscape, give us a chance to imagine what was there and what is to come. We can either complain or be disappointed over what is seemingly not there or delve further into these seemingly blank spaces and delight in the shapes, geometric interplays and markmaking possibilities with which we are faced. This drawing taken from my sketchbook is a still life of a vase filled with variety of blooming Dutch bulbs, most prominently tulips. Absence of the usual intense colors of tulips is filled with enticingly rich graphite, creating its own conversation in shadow, shape and depth. The stark winter landscape which many of us will be facing for many months to come, invites us to step into the domain on the spirit, as the branches and the negative spaces around them, weave intricate patterns from plays of light and shadow guiding our thoughts and visions towards the unknown. Absence of color is like a conversational pause and it can be just as powerful at punctuating numerous formal and expressive elements of a drawing.

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Gran Bwa

Gran Bwa is a lwa that helps you connect to ancestral roots or the spiritual home of Vodou. A friend of mine, who is an expert on Haitian Vodou, who has spent a lot of time in Haiti with the artists there, told me I had painted Gran Bwa when I made this spontaneous work out of walnut ink and sumi-ink on handmade paper. I had considered this painting a self-portrait. She now holds this piece in her private collection: Quite a few people are afraid of Vodou but it is an awe-inspiring tradition of bringing together plant energy with divinity, spiritual and personal energy. My friend who is very involved with Vodou, especially the art that surrounds it, is from European ancestry. She is light in spirit and bubbly, with a close relationship to nature and her garden. Vodou affirms the relationships between cycles of life, trees of knowledge and spirit. The Vodou vision of lwa , understands them as the intelligence of energy present in humans, nature and thoughts. ...

Tree Whispers

Tree Whispers Shinrin-yoku is a complementary medicine modality, designed to up-lift sub-par health conditions, through lifestyle changes that involve immersion in nature, specifically the wildness, we call a forest, where the senses, including our intuitive sense and ability to heal ourselves through it, is ignited. Forest bathing, as Shinrin-yoku is popularly called, has come to our attention, at a time when the scientific community is abuzz about the ability of trees - be it in stands, groves, or forests, to build community. This, at a time, when we as humans, struggle hard to build and sustain healthy in-person communities, in the face of Online communications. Books like “The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate Discoveries from a Secret World,” (Wohlleben 2016) by Peter Wohlleben is a Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. It makes readers privy to trees’ communication skills and social networks, that is, it helps us entertain...

Art of Motherland Herbal

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