featured gallery for October 2007

Many Lands

The pieces in this selection convey an amazing openness and intimacy. A great deal of freedom is evident as well -- a loss of inhibitions and a real intensity in hand and feeling.

As the group came together there was an apparent fluidity and compatibility in the sentiments of the images. They are topics that I am very drawn to in my surroundings, my own work and the work of others -- clearly being that of land, animals, our relationship to the two, and a spirituality that can be gained from both and has been throughout history.

The extreme form of the animal-human hybrid is represented here as well -- in the way of fantastical creatures and costume-zoomorphic masks and headdresses. As a result there is a mythic, totemic, and ceremonial quality to many of these pieces, as if they are guides. We anthropomorphize them too -- the baby eagles, the dancing zebras, and the lion monkey. The thoughtful owls, watching fish, and soft swan offer a potential companionship, a sensitivity. They create their own worlds that we can access. The quality of escape, quiet, and the comfort of land -- of nature -- makes our entry that much more satisfying.