ferox virago~Reimagined for Whatcom Museum's National Call to Artists: Acts of Healing and Repair

"ferox virago" 28"x12" mixed media on stretched canvas and acrylic pen on teabags attached to canvas panel (currently on exhibit for art studio events)

I first read of the Whatcom Museum's Call to Artists, months before the deadline. So many of my paintings deal on one level or another with healing that I thought choosing what to submit would be easy. It wasn't. I did think of two paintings as possibilities to submit, but I also was contemplating the word "acts" as I thought about my paintings. How could I create an "act" of healing, I wondered. One week before the entry deadline, I had the idea. I would adapt, and make prominent, the drawing of ferox virago that I had created during the covid period of lockdown and isolation in early 2020. I made that drawing to represent protection for us, particularly during that time to protect us not only from disease, but also to help us transcend and transform during this time of extreme uncertainty that amplified collective and individual fear. It has symbols of the triangle, spiral, stillness, world spirit, the scarab, the turtle, head of spiral horns, and hooves. (See the blog entry from 2020 for details about the inspiration, creation, and meaning.)

Loving glyphs and cave drawings, I decided to use Golden's Coarse Molding Paste with its sandy texture to suggest a rock-like surface. I painted a foundational color I made to look a bit like pinkish-orange feldspar (is my college Geology class paying off?), thinking I could add blue-green veins as I finished making this look as if it was taken from a cave wall. I played with ideas of what to add to the left of the predominant ferox virago, glyphs I had copied from symbolism books and ancient symbols I could find online, as well as what I had seen in rug and embroidered motifs. Some I made up as I played in my sketchbook. This was grand fun and left me with the delicious problem of having to be selective. I think I would have loved doing a whole wall of these. I drew the glyphs and ferox virago with watercolor crayon and went over these drawings with matte medium to stabilize them. 

My idea of "act of healing" was to draw the image of ferox virago onto a teabag with my pin type black Uni-Posco acrylic pen. I ended up attaching these to a tea-dyed, raw canvas panel with one stitch taken with the teabag string. The idea is that the viewer, for whom the art and the ferox virago image resonates, creates the act of healing by removing one of the drawings from the canvas panel and takes it for themselves to their homes or to pass on to another. 

I finished the art piece late the night before the deadline (took as good of a picture as I could given the poor lighting situation) and submitted the work. On September 1, I participated in Downtown Bellingham Art Walk and gave "ferox virago" a test run. About 10 people took one of the teabag "ferox virago" images home with them. Viewers overall seemed receptive, and we had many rewarding conversations around the art. In addition, one person told me that the act of pulling the stitched piece from the canvas gave her a profound positive feeling. I am grateful for that feedback and all of the feedback I received.

So whether the art is accepted into the show or not, I am most grateful for the inspiration I got to create it. And that came from reading the "Call to Artists" and contemplating the theme.

 

The Myth of the Monoliths

The Myth of the Monoliths (resolved 02/2022 No longer in inventory)

Edit: Early 2022 I have declared this painting "unresolved" and continue to work on it.

The Myth of the Monoliths

20"x20" acrylic on canvas

I'm interested in monoliths because, usually, they're created by ancient cultures. That taps into my very being--I feel the soul connection. Lately, monoliths have been part of the political discussion, as in "We are not a monolith." As a white woman over 65, I feel that declaration when stated by individuals who are part of another group of beings.

I am also interested in the word "myth," which can mean a widely held but false belief OR, conversely, a truth of a people. This election season revealed both aspects of myth. Oh, the stories we tell.

The monoliths in my painting do not stand completely separated from each other. They each have elements of the other. There are places where overlapping occurs, where foregrounds flow into each other. 

Step 1 was perfect grey applied with a brayer and then wiped off in places. This layer took about seven minutes, and it was so tempting to call "done." But where's the fun in that? The working title was "Feeling Some Kind of Way." Once I started working on it, though, monoliths emerged. I miss some of the white that's in the beginning layer but not in the finished piece. But, at the same time, I love what I replaced it with in the finished piece and don't wish those details/colors/forms gone. Ah the decisions, the settling in, the letting go. Pervasive part of the process. Some would say it's invasive rather than pervasive, though. Ha!

Still Being~Being Still Series and ferox virago (Art in the time of COVID pandemic)

(no longer in inventory)

Still Being~Being Still 1, 2, 3

Acrylic on canvas w Posca pen, each 9"x6"

During our time of attempting to stay physically healthy during the pandemic by hunkering down in our living spaces, I and so many of my artist friends, found ourselves challenged to find ways to continue creative expression while so many other thoughts and emotions were inhabiting our beings. Finally, after days and perhaps weeks of distraction, I broke through and into my creative expression by getting out my sketchbook and drawing ancient symbols onto the pages. In one of my researches of symbols, I found a Goddess Against Disease*

This goddess, as well as symbols for stillness, world spirit, scarab, spiral, were drawn into the paintings that I was finally able to create. I had originally intended that these marks be suggestions of what might be found in cave drawings, so that the paintings were to give us a sense of place outside the cave with a glimpse of what's inside the cave. It was only later, while looking at the formations of the outsides of the caves, that I realized that these were actually self-portraits--my head and depictions of my being during this time. They reflect my concern for not only humanity across the globe, but also for the thriving of and connectedness of our humanity. 

I had been looking back at expressions of earlier cultures and was placing myself into their connectedness at the same time of trying to stay present to the currents swirling in our world at this time. While ancient cultures expressed their values via cave drawings and rock drawings, in today's culture, we were on social media reaching out to stay connected, sharing our humor, our fears, our bringing of our creative spirits to make sense of how our instability/stability were being exposed. Ultimately, this series is about holding space for connectedness of past to present to future, holding space for contemplation, holding space for being.

*Originally, I gave thanks to the North American tribes who gave us "Unkatahe, Goddess Against Disease" as I used her in my art. Later, I thought it best to create my own symbol for protection. Hence, "ferox virago" Latin, meaning fierce female warrior

I use "female" here as acknowledgement of the Divine feminine, accessible to all, rather than as a delineating reference to gender. ferox virago carries the symbols of the downward pointing triangle, circle, spiral (in beginnings are endings; in endings are beginnings), stillness, world spirit, scarab (eternity), water, and the turtle (longevity, perseverance) as familiar, at the crown, powerful, spiral pronged antlers, all solidly balanced on pointed hooves. I drew her often on subsequent days, drew her on rocks, posted her on social media, imbuing her and she me with sustainable energy of being.

"MythMakers" Series CD Cover Art for "Variant" by AeTopus (Bryan Tewell Hughes)

MythMakers~Altar 3 (no longer in inventory)

MythMakers~Altar 1

MythMakers~Altar 3

MythMakers~Trove 3

MythMakers~Trove 2 (no longer in inventory)

MythMakers~Trove 1

MythMakers~Spiritscape 1(no longer in inventory)

MythMakers~Spiritscape 2(no longer in inventory)

 Altar and Trove pieces are 18"x18", Spiritscape pieces are 16"x20", mixed media and acrylic on panel board, CD art for AeTopus "Variant" planned for release August 2020. 

When commissioned by Bryan, he gave me the titles of the cuts for the CD and shared with me the concept of an ancient culture sitting around the evening's fire telling stories of their mythology. He gave me the drawing of the skeleton and skulls with feather. And I took it from there. I kept that narrative as well as the titles in mind as I worked, adding the idea of altars being created by the members of this culture and the pieces of the altars coming from a trove, collections of rust and bones and ephemera. The two last pieces, created for the back cover and inside back were inspired by Cappadocia formations--a combination of nature and human structures. This was created to reference the landscape/spiritscape where this ancient culture lived. The Variant, as conceived and depicted in the art, is the skeleton with the addition of the copper wire snake to represent the life force and what became known as the kundalini in later civilizations.

For more information about the music and other CDs by AeTopus, check out AeTopus.com, Spotify, and YouTube. I am a devoted listener of AeTopus music and play it often in my studio as I paint. This music is well valued and appreciated among the music community and has received awards and nominations--and rightly so. Such a delightful collaboration, a coming together of art and music.