Becoming
24" x 20" / acrylic on canvas / sold
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The Borderlands have become as personal and intimate to me as the feeling or touch of a lover’s skin upon my own. It has also taken me a considerable amount of experience and time being courted by the Borderlands to embrace them as such. Throughout my life, I have continued to have ongoing personal experiences of existing on or in the Borderlands. Although these experiences have often been a daily and familiar part of my life, at times, I have lacked an adequate frame of reference, knowledge or resources with which to interpret, understand or utilize them. In many ways, my contact with the Borderlands often left me with far more questions than answers.
As I continued to pass through the seasons of my life, I began to question my experiences of the Borderlands. Why had I been born unto a life that seemed not of one world or the other but of the places in between? Why did I feel a kinship and familiarity with the indeterminate areas, situations, or conditions located on or near a frontier or on the fringe of two or more worlds? I began to question what the benefits, meanings and applications of these experiences were and I began to question the purpose that they served. The longer I examined the role that these Borderland experiences had played in the weaving of the physical, psychological, societal, cultural, artistic, and spiritual threads of my life, the more I began to view their presence in my life as a type of sacred training ground. I began to believe that the Borderlands and their subsequent experiences and existences were serving as a training ground for those who have the potential to serve as intermediaries between the multiple worlds. The Borderlands acting as a figurative and literal loom from which a cloth that unites and connects both or multiple worlds is woven into existence. It is this cloth that is then fitted to those who have been trained to mediate or negotiate the places or lands of in-between. As this thought and belief grew stronger in my heart and mind, I began a process of excavation and research. |
Becoming
This process occurred on a deeply intimate and personal level. It also became a voice that called and beckoned. The vessel for its song became my artistic and spiritual practices. On a personal level, I was seeking guidance and understanding for the experiences and dreams that had whispered and shouted to me along the journey. Dreams, images, whispers and shouts that were so vivid and strong they had often found their way from the Borderlands onto the landscape of the canvases that I painted.
As I continue walking the landscape of the Borderlands, I am Becoming. |
