A Report from one of our lovely group of artists.
Beginning with the invitation to recall a childhood memory of color, pictures of my distant past return in vivid detail along with the sensual impressions of all that I felt, smelled, tasted, and heard as I view the image of a flower blossom on a tree and the distinct color of a shirt I wore around the age of 8. I take the invitation of these initial images that amaze me in their clarity and sense that they are a kind of gateway. The cup of yellowish waxy petals sprawl with a bursting orange around the center stamen against the greenery of the tree leaves in a lush East Coast summer forest. I depict these images and their sensations like a scribe of an evolving scene.
When I pause and look at the marked paper in front of me, I suddenly see more to the scene-my own essence dreaming down into the precious flower (though I never intentionally depicted myself). Following the impression deeper, I realize that I had absorbed the flower’s colors in our original communion and that I have carried them with me since…in fact, they became me. And in this moment these colors are the vehicle of my return back to them, this living place and child self. I make more marks to reflect the absorption of it all and was then posed with a question that I never before considered- Do the colors of everything I’ve encountered make up the colors of myself?
When stopping to recenter on the intention and original image encountered, I find myself entering deeper into the greater environment and intimate sensations of the remembered flower blossom. It is within this place that a figure of white light arises. She is still yet flowing and her outline is very clear. There is no message from her that is obvious but I embrace her appearance with awe. I intend to honor her by adding her shape to the marked impression, but notice when I go to do so there’s a flowing shape already captured there. I investigate by turning the page upside down and find that a faint impression of her shape is indeed already embodied on the paper. In this new orientation, the image gestures a white flowing body emanating a halo of color.
Although the markings are humble, they reflect the means of profound communion with Mystery living in and around me.