"Whither Should They Go?"

Another oil painting finally completed. Not quite sure of the title yet, but it has something to do with migration and the stars. In the 17th century, Charles Morton, believed birds went to the moon and back and Aristotle believed redstarts morphed into robins. Where do our birds go? We know now, with technology allowing a scientist to place teensy GPS devices on the teensy backs of birds. It may take the mystery away but does not take the awe away. How do birds, weighing so little fly so far. I like to think these purple martins take a flight into our Milky Way and back.

Migration Lines

This small oil painting ( I finally finished) is somewhat misnamed as our local wren doesn’t migrate, but he is definitely thinking about setting out and finding some new territory of his own. He’s had his eye on that corner lot at the creek, you know, where the old fir fell across the water? It has a nice mix of ferns there and salal.

"Jubilation"

A new painting is heading into the gallery for the show opening next week on the 12th. I thought of many names for it but the one that stood out the most was "Jubilation" because that's how gardens in bloom make us feel don't they?

 (Although right now I am listening to "Waltz of the Flowers" and that is pretty fitting as well.)

Creation Myths and Creating

"The Incubation of Self"   Oil

Called "Incubation of the Self", this painting emerged in two phases. The first was the nest and egg but something felt incomplete and I let the painting sit for a month or so. What was apparently wanting was the bird, but not just any bird, but a sturdy life-giving heavy-billed bird that was incubating a human. 

 Sometimes you just don't know what wants to come out into a painting.

Interestingly it was not until I was reading "Creation Myths by Marie-Louise Von Franz" that I realized that many birds are involved with the creation of the human. The Raven plays a large part in one of the Inuit myths wherein a Raven-like being plants seeds and out from a pod emerges a human. With him is a little sparrow who existed before Raven came into existence. (This sparrow does not figure in this painting but perhaps he will show up in a future painting? It might be fun to do the Raven and Sparrow myth in a painting.)

Father Raven went about and planted herbs and flowers. He discovered some pods and he looked at them and opened one, and a human being popped out of it- beautiful and completely grown, and the Raven was so bewildered that he threw his bird mask back, and through his bewilderment he became a human being again himself.  Marie-Louise Von Franz. Creation Myths, pg. 32.

I love how Raven is part human himself and unconsciously giving creation to the human race. My bird, although clearly not a raven, also somehow has the ability to generate the human being. I always find it a mystery as to what comes about in a painting process although perhaps not surprising as Von Franz says:

It is sometimes revealed very clearly to us that creation myths represent unconscious and preconscious processes which describe not the origin or our cosmos, but the origin of man's conscious awareness of the world. This means that before I become consciously aware of the world as a whole, or part of my surroundings, a lot happens in my unconscious. Ibid. pg.5.

So it is all happening in my unconscious before I am aware of it and thus always surprised as an artist as to what emerges on the canvas. It is always fun to expect the unexpected.

"Coming Home"

This painting is at the gallery and I am getting good feed-back. Very different from my very bright colours to be sure, but I do always like a bit of the icy feel.

" Coming Home" Oil  36" X 40"

"In the Autumn Dawn"

...is the title of this piece that sold last week. It had not long been painted, out the studio door and sold to a happy person. When I asked her if she had seen the fox, she said that she had not and was very pleased when I pointed it out to her. She said she was busy looking at the flowers in the meadow. Exactly the effect I was looking for. I wanted that feeling of standing in the meadow by the woods, seeing all the small things and suddenly, maybe catching the movement of something just in the shadows, just in the boundary where the sunny meadow merges into the forest edge. 

In the Autumn Dawn Oil

fox detail

Kinglet

We have a lot of kinglets around where I live. Usually they are high in the trees, squeaking their high-pitched rusty swing-set squeaks, but when they venture down to flit in and out of the shrub and branches, I catch a the flash of the ruby crown; such a bright streak in the undergrowth.

This fellow, painted in oil, is enjoying his penthouse view of the ocean.

"At the Heart of the Matter"

A new little oil painting that I finally finished. It sat very patiently, wondering when I would stop being distracted by so many other things, much like all my patient teachers.

Actually, I was stuck in how to paint bees the way I feel about them. How to paint them as moving fire and light; little jewels in the air. I am very happy with the way they turned out and of course, it opens the door to other paintings with bees. So important in this turbulent world where we are collectively removing them from our Earth.

"Summer Tapestry"

"Summer Tapestry" is my latest work displayed at the gallery.