My work reflects the timeless spiritual mysteries suggested by Stonehenge and other megalithic formations. The work also explores subtle changes in our models of masculinity and femininity, using mindful sensuality to find deeper meanings. Relationships are central to much of how I view the world. I feel much of our culture is operating out of the duality and mechanistic thinking of Descartes and Newton, while current beliefs in physics suggest a worldview of interconnection and mystery. …
My work reflects the timeless spiritual mysteries suggested by Stonehenge and other megalithic formations. The work also explores subtle changes in our models of masculinity and femininity, using mindful sensuality to find deeper meanings. Relationships are central to much of how I view the world. I feel much of our culture is operating out of the duality and mechanistic thinking of Descartes and Newton, while current beliefs in physics suggest a worldview of interconnection and mystery. I feel it is the artist’s work to bring this magic and paradox to enchant us and help us see the profound in the simplicity of everyday objects: wood, stone, earth.
“I love the dark mysteries of the night where there are no experts to steal our sight.” Poems are often part of my sculptural process, and I frequently use them as titles. Groupings and assemblages reflect my interest in learning more about relationships, groups and communities. Often images from my smaller “Touchstones” ceramic images are used with stones, sand, sacred earth, prayers, and ceremony, in a series called Songs from the Earth: Visions of Healing. “Feeling alone is a trick we play on ourselves when we’re afraid.” is one title.
I have recently been working in Cob, an earthen material used to build homes in England and Wales. Mixing this material with one’s feet is truly a religious experience. Earth is a powerful material to help us reconnect to nature in the midst of an often disconnected, technological world. By working with such an ordinary material, I hope to help us integrate art into our daily lives so we can begin to create the world we want to live in, and using the earth as an art material we will learn that the material isn’t ordinary at all but instead a magical touchstone waiting to take us home once again to remember what is really important about living.” In the earth there is a soul they say and you are that” Rumi
I have begun a series in Cob called “Earth Prayers for World Peace,” which are site-specific community monuments for healing the Earth and at the same time ourselves. The first “Earth Prayer” was completed on Whidbey Island, Washington. It is called “Spirit of the Valley: An Earth Prayer for Peace” (7-1/2 ft. by 4 ft. by 4 ft.) Thirty-six people, ranging in age from 4 to 83, helped construct the piece as well as embed sacred objects in it as it was drying (stories, seeds, feathers, poems and prayers) Constructing such a monument together is a powerful process of community building, having fun, healing the Earth and ourselves, and reawakening for us all the power and the beauty and presence of the Earth.
Since the first “Earth Prayer” created in 1997, we have created approximately 25 Earthprayers for World Peace across the western United States; an archway and benches at a high school, a Hopi Labyrinth in a park in Santa Fe, a large Earth Mother that children can sit in for the Children’s Museum in Santa Fe, and recently “La Pachamama,” a figurative life-size Earth Mother constructed primarily by women at Ghost Ranch Conference Center. At the Peace Camp in Valencia NM a few summers ago we created two collaborative healing works with girls from Israel and Palestine; We often lay our bodies on the earth and ask her for images and ideas and then create them.
In a recent project for a community playhouse: a turtle, a dragon and a mermaid. We are also making little Earthprayers peach size to bury around the world as seeds for world peace. When enough are planted, (from a dream I had) we will indeed have world peace in our lifetime.
