Knitted Seaweed and other Oddities

For those of you not behind the redwood curtain, Arts Alive is a monthly showing of local art. It all happens in Old Town Eureka on the first Saturday of the month. This month I have my Global Multimedia Collage pieces up at Shipwrecked. For those of you inside the curtain, Shipwrecked is a shop on third and F street in Old Town. I will be there this Saturday evening, come visit me. Here is  a small sampling of what will be there.

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Clark is modeling a fabulous cloak knitted entirely out of surf grass and adorned with shells all collected off Northern California’s Clam Beach. He will be showing his Cloak next month for the Arts In Motion Exhibition in Eureka, Ca. Stay tuned for more details.

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Here are a few of my flower paintings that I did several years ago. I have been lazy with the paintings as of late, mostly because I was in Thailand for two weeks and then catching up to California time last week. And then of course busy making cards. I collected lots of leaves, ticket stubs and trash while I traveled around South Asia.

The daisy I painted as a thank you to a friend who helped with our daughter’s wedding, the poppies were my first commission, the sunflower was a gift to a good friend, the fuschia was just because and so was the daffodil.

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I’ve looked at leaves from both sides now….

Not long ago I was sitting in a darkened theater watching a play. My eyes were drawn to the beam of light that the spotlight made. I watched the little specks of dust floating through space. Suddenly I was deep in the vastness of our insignificance. There are over six billion people on this planet — a number I can’t get my head around. I do know that it makes me pretty ordinary.

I think, to an American, being ordinary is an insult; we must be unique and individual. We are raised on this mantra, though I now doubt it. I am just like everyone else on my street, my block, my town.

Then it struck me. This is why I paint leaves. At first glance all leaves look the same. We can’t see the leaves for the tree. When they are on the tree they are rather uniform, there is very little distinction from one leaf to the next. It is only when they begin to change colors and fall off the tree that they become unique. Much like people, the truly interesting ones are flawed, broken, and changing colors.

So these paintings are my cry into the great well of insignificance. I am unique, rare and not like other leaves.

On the other hand, leaves symbolize shame. Adam and Eve used them to cover themselves in the garden and to hide from their Creator who loved them with an all inclusive, overwhelming, unconditional love. My paintings highlight that shame and our freedom from it. When we recognize and acknowledge the shame, only then can we get out from under it.

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I am starting this blog so when people ask me about my art I do no have to drag them back to my bone cold garage to view my work. Plus it would be a really long trip for all my friends that live in Malta (I miss you all), and Morocco and other countries that start with M. As soon as I figure out how to tack up photos I will.

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