The Belly Cauldron is a mixed media piece: ceramic, acrylics, moss and slate slab.

Happy Birthday, Seth

My son is 30 today! I remember that when he was ready to "arrive," I grabbed a bunch of lilac blooms and we drove into town from our farm in Illinois. I am remembering this from my place on an island in the Pacific Northwest. After many adventures, Seth recently returned to the homestead and is anticipating the later-than-usual lilac blooms to open. His friends came to the farm, I hear, to plant a Japanese maple and to celebrate with birthday cake. Happy Birthday, Seth!

Spring Chicken

Gathered fresh from Bayview Farmers Market!

Also April 23

The most recent participant left evidence of the concept medial axis raked into the black sand. It is the tree-like path that forms in sand and between the objects in Zen gardens. It is said to be a visual link to the axis mundii, the world tree, giving rest to the individual who gives attention to its form.

April 23

We strike the show today. These are the latest pics of what has been designed since Earth Day.

Progression & Participation

Gallery visitors accepted the invitation to re-imagine and re-assemble the space with materials from Nature. Co-creating is a skill to develop as humanity moves forward. Knowing what is around us, listening to the possibilites, playing with options to nurture our communities...all are part of our work. I notice what is placed and included in the boundaries and what is on the "borderlands."

Different forms of moss and lichen were placed in the four corners. At the very center a spiral (moon shell) appears and holds the movement that is happening inside this alchemical vessel (copper/Venus/love). There are really two vessels: the linear space and the rounded one containing more possibilities. The
large poppy seedhead holds sand in its crown...the soil, the fruitful darkness,
the possibilites of the fertile landscape. A copper/pearl/blueberry scepter
stands proudly in the corner in front of moss. A family of blueberries
encircles a white feather and buried pearls. A pearl's copper spiral weaves
inside a hole in a white shell. The little geode (crystal) coracle now holds
black sand - perhaps to transport that fertility to a new endeavor. The large
schist stones from the island of Iona in Scotland are ringed by shell, jasper,
Apache's tear and quartz. Moss "grows" again on its surface.

Thank you to each person who contributed to the new design. What do you think? The Earth Day art gallery will be open at Bayview corner, Whidbey Island, until Wednesday, April 23rd.

Earth Day 2008

Marc Dion designed Neukom Vivarium, a
greenhouse housing an eighty foot nurse log near Seattle's waterfront. The Olympic Sculpture Park is designed to provide experience in “archetypal” land areas. The archetype framed by the nurse log is one of forest renewal…..as the old form dies, it provides nourishment for the new life to come.

In the digital image, we are stepped back in layers: out of the forest, out
of the sidewalk greenhouse room, wanting to be close to the
Nature that
renews.

The window reflects the ripples of photographer’s grip
overlaid
on the distorted image of the nurse log with the plant life it
supports.
Reflections of the street lights in silhouette, a green traffic
light and a
street that “reads” green in the image demonstrate the levels of
activity in
this
urban forest. The old cedar supports sword ferns, baby
big leaf maple,
Oregon grape, lichens and fungus. We view the old log
juxtaposed with the neon
sign for The Old Spaghetti Factory. Both
“factories” offer their own kind of
nourishment with sound reminders of the
incessant gaze of the city itself, as
the nurse log continues on its
now-very-public quest to support renewal.

On Whidbey Island, Earth Day included wind, solar and electric car demonstrations; information tables for Castle Goat Farm, Whidbey Institute ( calculate your carbon footprint), Pam's Seed Saving, and Whidbey Watershed (salmon protection and outdoor classroom). Music celebrations happened throughout the day, culminating with Open Circle Singers who invited audience participation. The Earth Day art show contained sculpture, collage, assemblage, photography, painting, and multi-media.

Earth Day on the Way

The moss, copper, pearls and sand are an interactive assemblage called

Brothers and Sisters of the Island inviting the Earth Day Art Show audience to "play in the garden." It includes a field of green silk, a copper bowl set to the side with materials from nature, and a tiny woven copper rake for Zen-garden-like design.

During its previous appearance, the assemblage evolved over the course of Goddard College's "Considered Spaces" exhibit - with the theme of liminal space. This was created as a segue piece between the themes of liminal spaces and people, place and practice. People not only played and re-arranged, but brought objects from Nature, such as feathers, a bee, a carrot, and an orange peel that dried into an angel silhouette. The invitation to play motivated others to add to the offerings and to expand the composition. We'll see what happens during Earth Day 2008!

The trail is a lovely path through the Chinook lands of the Whidbey Institute. I find beauty and deep teaching here.

Another dream image - painted first, written about next. The most striking objects were the glowing forms growing out of the land among the greening fields. The filaments of gold were similar to ones in a dream I had eight years ago, where everything was just vibrating with these threads. A voice from an unseen source said, "Step through." Now there is new life being born across the land within the circles of the golden threads. It gives me pause..........

Taxes are done - Amen!

Grateful for a little peace and time to keep painting. The dream image with the gold huts has me on the path toward welcoming sanctuaries. The Contemplative is a work-in-progress.

Message in a Bottle

I knew their voices
at first light.
Welling from the deep –
whale prayers.
Revival meeting-
a salt water tent.

Elegant bodies,
roll with geyser breath,
nest in underwater
moss-
The Mother wakes them.
They could plunge their
toes in her muddy coat
if they had feet.

They do
have low,
rumbling song.

I wake
to their voices returning,
move in unison,
weighted, fluid,

swimming in the soup
of Saratoga,
the Salish Sea.

Pluto retrograde

The beginning...the word...the image. Equinox ushered in the evidence of balance and hope.