Convalesce. Summer 2013-Summer 2015.

Some stories must be given space an time to unfold.  And a good storyteller knows to be an open gate for the right words and meanings to flow through them on the way into many ears.  These gatekeepers need not grab on to the details of the story passing through--we only do this out of fear of leaving a moment behind.  Rather, all details are already enough, already moving as they will.  Let them pass by into you and out again, as they come.  Inspiration is a synonym for inhalation.  Expiration is another way to say exhalation.  The seed and the death.

 It just takes a steady love and curiosity, a dance into the depth of the story and back out again to it's edge to see the fabric it weaves--the truth and the heart of it.

Augury. June 2015.

This happened over many moons, through many changes of heart.  It hatched from the waters of deep winter, and sprouted brightly with the spring.  Now it tells the story of what comes to pass when one opens an altar to the unknown, listens to its soundtrack, watches quietly, in awe, as a dance unfolds.

Wash

Wash.  July 2015.  8' x 2' acrylic on maple.

This session was total therapy.  I have been thinking a lot about what it taught me of the creative process.

Twas the last night of some needed solitude in a beautiful Mars Hill, NC house on a hill facing the burning summer sunset.  I began shortly after dinner and rode the wave of easy inspiration until the last lines trickled out at 3am.  When I stepped away, body tired and relaxed, I had the pleasure of seeing the whole for the first time.  I am still in awe of the creative process: how it is possible to drop so far inside the work of one's senses that the analytical brain turns off.  In this space, it is the belief in the joy of the experience that guides the work.  It is a reboot for the whole system, like losing oneself in any other practice, and when one steps back from the experience, and the ego turns on again, the moment is rich with awe and near disbelief of the places we went while we weren't consulting our map or double checking ourselves.