Galleries
Voices Of The Ancestors
Voices of the Ancestors
This series of paintings was inspired by four months of study involving ancient and indigenous people from around the world. I learned that for them, art is a source of power and the sacred is central to their art making. Art in these cultures is considered a communion or instrument between a person and the sacred world. It is not produced for decoration or aesthetics, but for the power of the images as an integral part of the tribe’s pottery, textiles or carvings. The images themselves are considered sacred . Indians use their creative process as contact with spirit in order to seek wisdom. They divine images that come to them in dreams and visions for the purpose of bringing enlightenment to themselves and their community. This sense of the sacred has been omitted from most art created today. It is my wish to bring the sacred back in and create genuine art.
Spirit needs to be added back into the process of creating art. For me, that means listening. I wish to experience the creation process as a form of divination., with myself as a conduit for the voices of the ancestors. My wish is to remain awake and alert to the cries of the world, transcend mere aesthetics and dive deeper in response to the inaudible.
January 2011