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I am often amazed when I look back and see what has caught my eye and imagination each day. They (the images), much like my paintings feel like communion. An interchange or sharing of thoughts and emotions and a process in which messages, whispers and stories reveal themselves through a process of co-creation. A Sense of Place (2007) In 2007 I began a project that I called A Sense of Place. A project in which I made a commitment and a promise that I would actively and consciously engage in a practice of strengthening my relationship with the land that I lived on and the community that I was part of. The commitment was simple; everyday I would carry a camera and I would walk through the community in which I lived. My definition of community included my neighborhood/town and the natural world that was embedded, inseparable and interwoven with the constructed world of of our human interactions, inhabitance and the society had been built up around, through and upon it. I carried the camera to document my adventures, what was revealed through the process, and what my eyes had been opened to that had previously gone unseen. I experienced and learned much in that year. I learned about the watershed that supplied flowing life to my everyday world. I learned about the cycle of life, birth, growth and death. I learned of the plants and animals that I shared the geography of my existence and the world that we all knew as our home. I learned about the impact that we curious humans have on the world around us. I also learned that the more I became aware of the movements of the world around me, the more I knew of my own rhythm, impact and my purpose within it. The "framing" of this mysterious and gorgeous world through the lens of the camera allowed me to shift my vision. It afforded me the opportunity to slow down and see from a different perspective what on other occasions I had been moving to quickly to acknowledge, notice and see. There was something exquisitely beautiful in returning to and/or passing the same giant pine tree everyday and watching as its gorgeous, aromatic, sticky life force flowed in the spring, gummed in the summer and froze into magnificent blue, purple, white and pink crystalline structures in the arms of winter. Interestingly enough, I do not enjoy carrying a camera when I travel to a place that is new to me or when I am a "visitor". I have a natural resistance to doing so. The further away from where my life is centered and lived on a daily basis - when I am a "tourist" so to speak, the carrying of the camera can somehow feel rude or strangely wrong. My eyes, being and senses are already so engaged and swimming in the multitude of new sounds and sights that the camera can feel like an unnecessary intrusion. In these times it can feel like I begin to rely on the camera to shift my vision and only succeed in creating a distance between myself and the newness of the environment and experience. It can also feel like I am using the cameras ability to "remember" instead of my own. I travelled to New Mexico twice a year for 5 years and completely moved my life there before I ever took a photo of that land. However...in the place that I inhabit, in the place that I rely upon as a daily source of my existence; the camera becomes a pause and a shift in the way that I can see. It is an opening and an invitation to the world around me. I am called to notice, to see differently, to not take for granted what surrounds me as a result of the regularity with which I pass by and/or my familiarity with it. Vision Shift (2017) I have now been living in my current home and location for little under 6 months. I have once again found myself carrying a camera for the same reasons I did in 2007. The reason or intention that I am engaging in the process is the same as it was ten years ago. It is the process itself that is now slightly different. Technology sure has come a long way in the last 10 years. After taking an initial photograph I do a very similar process as the one involved in the creation of my paintings. I "shift" aspects of the image; altering qualities of light, hue, distortion, inversion, contrast, etc. I think of the process and its actions as a series of doors. One door opens to reveal the next - each door revealing what had been previously unnoticeable or unseen to my eyes. Communion  Communion / 16" x 20" / acrylic paint on canvas / 11.00.2007 Writing on Communion (2007) Sometimes the way a painting begins and takes form is a disorienting experience for me. Although I always feel at peace and at home within myself when I am holding the brush in my hand and watching the colors swirl into formation, sometimes I feel as if I am being deconstructed. Through the experience of creating, I am being taken apart and then recreated in ways that I do not always understand. When a painting comes into being in this way, it usually happens with a simple and yet overwhelming feeling that some intangible form, feeling, force, thought or aspect of change is lying just beneath my surface. It feels as if it is lying in wait underneath my very skin until I am ready to accept where it will lead me, until I am ready to allow it to rise to the surface and transform my existence from the world and messages of my inner being. It is reminiscent of an alchemical process in that my senses, body, and spirit have taken in ingredients that are being mixed and transformed within, in order to be transmuted and thus transform the outer. I have learned much from the paintings that have come through me in this way. One of the most important things I have come to understand is that I do not always need to understand. The messages of the paintings that come in this way are not meant to be instantaneously integrated, understood or easy to dissect. They are the very reflections of change themselves. Some aspect of myself, my spirit, my body, or my being is in a state of transformation and change. I have learned to accept that I do not always have neat explanations, eloquent prose, or a nice, neat, pretty bow to wrap a painting up with. The images that take shape in this way, often continue to transmit their lessons to me for years to come. I have had the experience of looking at these paintings years after they have been brought to the canvas and understanding things that I did not, or could not have understood when the painting came into existence. I often find myself chuckling at such moments, for what I have come to understand or see has been literally right in front of my eyes for quite sometime. I will chuckle again after additional time has passed, and I come to the realization that what I thought I had finally understood had an entire additional layer and depth that I had not yet been privy to. They are my teachers and I am their student, and I experience and accept them as gifts from places and realms that are Mystery to me. As I look at “Communion” now, I have more questions than I do answers. Is the sun setting as a result of society’s disregard and inability to be aware of the gifts and beauty of our Mother Earth, or is the sun setting because of the simple and glorious beauty that is a sunset? Is the figure on the top layer of the Earth male, or is it female? If the top figure is male, does it represent the suppression of feminine energy and the dominance of a patriarchal society or does it simply speak to the beauty of true intimacy and communion between all living forms? These are just a few of the questions that I am left with as I walk away from laying the paint on the canvas. In Gratitude, Love and Art, ~Heather I invite you tp click on the word COMMENTS below to leave a thought, comment or question.
 "The Willow's Dance for the Ocean" Like waves that both crashed against my shore and gently lapped along my edges, I laid in a state of ecstasy, feeling the ripples and energy of the waves wash over me. I knew that I had been forever moved from where I once stood. As my rational mind slowly made its way back from the depths of the watery realm, I watched as the Willow gracefully collaborated with the Wind in the most exquisite of dances. For just a moment; the part of me which had not returned, the part of me which was still dancing on the edge of ecstasy could see the web that held it all together. The Willow and her roots always seeking water, always trying to find her way home to the Mother. Her dance was for the Mother of us all, the one she continually longs to be close to, the one that is home and the one that sustains life. For just a moment I could see her roots stretching like a network of fragile neurons, reaching for that which she loves, longs for, weeps for and always remembers. What had only moments before been ecstasy moved into the deepest waters of grief. I would later find myself on my knees weeping as I had watched the Willow do. I spoke words to the Mother of us all. As the tears flowed from my eyes I made an oath that I would do my part to assist in remembering Her... For the last year the water in my dreams has been steadily rising. Even when the dreams have been rooted in the sands and surroundings of this desert home, they have been messages speaking of the water's arrival. The rising of tides. The dry riverbeds of the arroyos flooding. In this nightly realm, even when the speech and messages have spoken to the absence of water, they have spoken about the events that will occur upon its arrival. What of the last five years of my inhabitance in this desert landscape has been or has served a purpose of "drying me out"? An evaporation or hollowing, a burning away of what is no longer needed or necessary for me to carry. Old ways of thinking like ancient aquifers that no longer reach to the places in need of irrigation, baking in the sun to dry and crumble and once again return to the earth. What if I have been training on how to survive and thrive in conditions such as these? As of late, the liquid landscape of the dreams has been increasing in intensity. Their message growing in strength, and speaking of a quickening. What if the magnificent Ocean Mother has been calling to me? Letting me know of our meeting or perhaps more appropriately of our reunion? When I made the journey to this arid land that has been my home for the past five years I thought then that I would root here for the remainder of my life. I had been called here in dreams by the voices of those whose legacies and lives have been seeped into this ground. This beautiful, rugged, wild and carved landscape has taught me much. She opened her arms and embraced me, and then, as she held me tight, she began her tempering. One lesson after another...parasitic infestations...the plummet of financial instability...near death by carbon monoxide poisoning...lessons on love and betrayal...a touch with bubonic plague...boulders falling from mesas and destroying my transportation...a swarm of locusts devouring the fruits of the garden...the list goes on and on... I wrapped my arms around her neck and held on tight, praying that she would change her embrace. I prayed that she would kiss me gently, whisper in my ear and speak to me of our love for one another. There were moments of such tenderness. Moments when she and I held hands and matched our footsteps to one another. But as a lover she would not marry her hand to mine. As is the case with lovers who sometimes magically enter our lives, the passion and the desire for union was intense, beautiful, epic - they teach us much. They hold a mirror of reflection up and we are blessed to see more clearly our own faces. She has done this for me. She has revealed pieces of my landscape that I had yet to know, that I could not see, that I refused to look at. As the marking of time passed and the events and happenings of the previous year drew to a close, an unexpected man entered my life. He arrived in this desert land with the whisper of the Ocean. The smell of her wind and body carried magically and embedded in his skin, being, words and way of existence. Recently I have found myself wondering if she had sent him to carry me in his arms to her. The cargo is being prepared. The route is being mapped and the sailing crew is almost assembled. The voyage from this land of sand and sun will set sail on August 20th, making a voyage that will lead to the waters. Mother, I am coming home to sit upon your shores and fulfill the promise that we spoke of in the watery realm of the dreams.  "Mother's Nature" What had only moments before been ecstasy moved into the deepest waters of grief. I would later find myself on my knees weeping as I had watched the Willow do. I spoke words to the Mother of us all. As the tears flowed from my eyes I made an oath that I would do my part to assist in remembering Her... That night as I slept I had the following dream… I am slowly meandering my way along a vast and expansive shoreline. There is only the shoreline, the Ocean, the edge created by their meeting and the sound and movement of the Wind. As I travel along the edge I glimpse a small hut a ways off in the distance. As I approach the hut I notice the absence of a door. I step through the opening and find myself inside with a Woman who is of substantial matter. She is sitting on the floor of the hut as if she has always been there, waiting. Her skin is the color of the deepest of sand and copper and her flesh is bountiful and gracefully drapes her bones in abundance and the wealth of her knowing. Her hair flows in thick and wild ropes around her shoulders, past her heaving breasts and touches the earthen floor of the hut. In front of the Woman is a low table made of driftwood that has swam in the waters of the Ocean since time began. On the table there is a row of necklaces each bearing an amulet. Each amulet has been made from pieces of the Ocean, pieces of Her. The Woman lifts her head and her eyes meet mine. She says the following; “My daughters are going to be in a play for the Ocean. Each daughter must pick an amulet to wear.” She finishes speaking and simply holds my gaze with her large eyes. It is as if she has always been here. Waiting. Less then a week after having this dream I was visited by a young woman. Upon arriving at my home she presented me with a present from her recent travels to the Ocean. She opened her hand to reveal a necklace with an amulet made from a white bursa center cut seashell. As she handed me the amulet she said, “I wanted to bring you an amulet from the Ocean.” As I turned to look at this young woman, for just one moment, in her eyes, I saw the eyes of that beautiful copper skinned Woman who has always been there. Waiting. If you would like to leave a comment or have thoughts to share please click on the word COMMENTS below.
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