December 2009
Second Saturday Receptions: December 12, 2009 from 5:00 to 9:00 PM.
Alternative Process
The two bodies of work in this exhibition continues my experience with Nature; its beauty, grounding influence and healing properties.
The Nature Sprit Mandalas are made using photographic imagery from Nature I have captured including those of ravens flying around me on the Mendocino Headlands. According to Native American tradition the Raven is the guardian of both ceremonial magic and healing circles. Raven symbolizes the void - the mystery of that which is not yet formed. The iridescent blue and green that can be seen in the glossy black feathers of the raven represents the constant change of forms and shapes that emerge from the vast blackness of the void.
From the Indian language Sanskrit meaning sacred circle, Mandalas are gateways to our divinity, the God within us. Mandalas represent the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically and represent centered wholeness. They are microcosms of the universe from the human perspective and inspired by energy inherent in the Earth and Nature. The Mandala can be used during meditation as an object for focusing attention. The symmetry of the designs tends to draw the attention towards their center.
The Nature Spirit Landscapes began when I was working with parts of landscapes I had captured. When overlapped in the right way, faces that were human and/or animal in appearance become obvious to the observer. I became fascinated with the entities that looked out at me as I produced these images. Ironically, I tried this process with man-made objects and found that nothing of a human or animal nature appeared.