Personal Paintings Artist Statement
Becoming and renewing-through an ancestral visual language is at the core of my work. Through painting, I connect to my ancestors; to a Lifeway (pre-christian European Lifeway) that has been buried, lost, castoff, and forgotten in the often forced immigration to the "New World". Such Lifeways are powerful, humane, spiritual, and fully multi-dimensional, as are all Original Peoples’ Lifeways.
I make paintings to absorb and share the images, signs, symbols, legends and ways of being of that time so that I may continue to live them and learn from them today. It has become an essential practice for me to ‘know thyself’. I’ve learned from the Original People (Indigenous/Native) friends, that knowing oneself, is knowing one’s Ancestral People and their Lifeway.
While I make paintings for me, I am also sharing this ancestral knowledge for those who need it or want it. We, of European heritage, on this American continent uprooted ourselves from our ancestral origins. These paintings connect to my ancient past while helping me live and create in contemporary times. I dream, that they might help others reveal and renew their ancestral Lifeway, visual language, their unique and healthier way of being.
My journey-a number of years ago- to northern Europe was made possible through a research fellowship. This hands-on study has given me an authentic beginning, a familiarity with the knowledge, philosophy, mythology, and iconography of my ancestors visual language.
We are just beginning to understand our long alienation from our authentic European Heritage which was harmonic, gylanic, and earth centered.
Becoming and renewing-through an ancestral visual language is at the core of my work.