I have been continuing to go through my sketchbook and
repurposing my blind contour garden sketches.
It’s funny how something you did so long ago can be pertinent and useful
today. This particular sketch had a
strong suggestion of landscape in its foundation. As I developed it and worked into it with oil
pastels I began to focus on remembering vacations in Wisconsin. There are incredible geographic land
formations in Wisconsin and I am attracted to the powerful forces of Mother
Nature that created them. I thought
quite heavily about the Driftless regions of Wisconsin and the Kettle Moraines
as I worked on this drawing. It was a
respite from life to work on this and it took quite a bit of time, working during
multiple sessions. I call this “The
Driftless,” named after the driftless region in Wisconsin. It stands as a reminder of the power of
Mother Earth to continuously transform and impact our world.
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. ...
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