Working Philosophy

 

These images address spiritual portals and sacred spaces based on my experiences with the Hocq’reila Ceremonies, Sundances, Vision Quests, Sweat Lodges, and many more. The images are choreographed, narrated, contextualized, and composed by Spiritual directions. It is an intersection of the media and technique and the meditative silence of spirituality that are directing the images. The images are occurrences on a Spiritual journey addressed with material means. They translate the unmistakable reality of many other ways of knowing. They represent a moment -- parallelism of portals and prisons - issues of insideness, outsideness, and upside-downness within the visceral senses that are interwoven into human perceptions. They are gestural perceptions of actual occurrences; snapshots of a journey of many ceremonial events. They are frozen memories -- fleeting experiences that echo mercurial moments found simultaneously in primordial, elemental, and human existence. Though there are statements of form and color, the easy-to-overlook intricacies, nuances, vibrations, and echoes are more important. The visual elements are what is understood with eyes and intellect; the nuanced echoes are understood with a heart-centered intuition and an understanding not seen with the physical eyes. The relationship between red and blue, and black and white are important. The North is blue and represents Divinity (knowing), the South is red representing prayer (understanding), the West is black and represents emotion (feeling), and the East is white which represents the intellect (thinking). When the four directions converge there is an opportunity for a conversation between divinity and humanity which is represented as indigo/violet.

 

Silent Songs Series

Each person has been impacted differently by the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in resistance, fear, anger, frustration, depression, anxiety, but also an awakening to family and community, awareness of person and place, celebration of self and others, and much more. These images discuss a rehabilitative process and the transformative nature of silence, spirituality, and studio practices. Through this process, I am being transformed and the poignant part of the process is the intersection of the meditative silence of spirituality directing the images. The images are collectively entitled Silent Songs. These images visually address the space between the physical and spiritual. Silent Songs refer to the space between ceremonial songs and chants, and similarly, they refer to the space between thoughts – the place of silence where humanity coexists with Divinity. This is a transformative and evolving process to align the inter/intra reality of the journey to becoming a complete human through artistic practices.

 

 

Sound of Ceremony Series

These images are bridges into the invisible world not seen with the physical eyes, but through Spirituality. The textures in these images represent the sounds and tones found in many ceremonial songs and chants. The large black areas are for grounding the Base Chakra, stabilizing the Energy field. The red spaces represent prayer tones similar to the sounds of Hallelujah, Namaste, Shalom, Insha'Allah, or Aum. The smaller fibers represent a high octave single angelic tone of Divine Energy - it is for the Crown Chakra and beyond.