below the surface of skin, muscle and bone...

...the kind of change and transformation that you can feel occuring deep below the surface of your skin, muscle and bones.  The kind that is like a wind which can steer the vessel that you move in in strange and unexpected ways.  You know that you are being set on a course...

What do you see?

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I get up very early in the morning...before the Sun rises.  I typically will go and sit outside for a few moment and take in those glorious moments before the dawn starts to shine her light.  This mornng as I was sitting outside holding my cup of coffee, I was watching the play of light and shadow and  remembering the dream that had come in the night.  This particular dream came on the back of another dream that I had received two days prior.  I have been "calling" for a dream.  I did not expect to wake from that first dream gasping for air and desparately looking around trying to determine which reality was the one that I found myself in.  It was a "shock" dream.  One in which you have no choice but to acknowledge or "wake-up" to the message that the dream is trying to convey.  I am usually very skilled at dream interpretation, especially my own, however, this one left me shaken and unsure of aspects of its meaning.  

If you have been following these posts then you may remember the one in which I shared the story of the painting The Creation of the Firmaments.  The dream that came the other night had some of these elements...a completely white building perched on the end of a vast and expansive sea.  The arrival of a great whale...except this time the whale arrived transported in the arms of a massive and swirling storm.  I am still unravelling the message that were sent in that night vision. The dream that came last night provided a clue or a further unravelling of the first one's meaning. 

So...back to me sitting with my coffee, watching the veil between night and day shift and looking up at the night sky.  As I was sitting there wandering in my thoughts and the waking of the world, it happened - a shooting star went streaking across the sky.  In my life story, shooting stars have historically signalled that a large shift and/or transformation has begun.  One night, a long time ago, as I laid on a pile of wooden boards in a small rural village in New Mexico, it was a shooting star that was the final determining moment that precipitated my move to that land of sky and sand. So, this morning, I watched as that streak of stardust tore acrcoss the sky.  I have felt its coming for some time now - its arrival confirmation for what I could feel but struggle to have words for.  What I still struggle to have words for.  What I do know is that I am changing.  Of course we are all always changing, for how could we not be, but I am talking about the kind of change and transformation that you can feel occuring deep below the surface of your skin, muscle and bones.  The kind that is like a wind which can steer the vessel that you move in in strange and unexpected ways.  You know that you are being set on a course.  For me, this always simultaneously occurs with a feeling of uncomfortable restlessness. 

My most recent painting, The Becoming of Persephone also speaks to this feeling. ​ 

The Becoming of Persephone / 16" x 20" / 11.19.2017

This was not how I originally envisioned this painting.  In some way, shape or form, all of the paintings are autobiographical - how could they not be.  It is not unusual for the paintings to take on a life and/or will of their own, but this one snuck up on me.  I am typically working on more than one painting at a time.  This number can range from 2 or 3 up to about 9 or 10.  At some point while I am working on all of them one will jump to the forefront and let me know that it is ready to be completed (at least in regards to my role in the process).  If you would have told me that when I originally began this painting I would later title it, The Becoming of Persephone, I would have been extremely doubtful for I never envisioned it/her becoming what she did or having the feel that she does.  This is not one of my facorite paintings.  On the day that I completed her, I found myself choosing colors that I would not typically combine  in order to convey the feeling of unease or uncomfortableness that I was experiencing as I watched her morph from the original inception that I had for her.  

There are certain paintings that have marked a transition or a moment when my painting style shifts or changes, or when I am in the process of incorporating some new aspect of working with the paint, brushes, my soul and the images.  This is one of those.  She is what I think of as a transitory painting; a painting "in-between" larger movements of my life.   What will follow...well...I do not yet know.  I do understand that it is about rhythms and cycles that are at play.  I do know that in order for her to return in the spring she must let the previous season sleep, become the compost that will nourish the new growth of the following season.  

What will I do now?  I will go after the riddle.  I will spend time researching the images that swim through the dreams, I will research Persephone in all of her various forms throughout time.  I will look for the clues that have been left for me to follow.  What else will I do...keep painting and keep dreaming...

In Love, Gratitude & Art,
~Heather