Worth Writing

Astoundingly, I have returned to the art world at last!  The obstacle to my work was an inability to accept that I am no longer the same person as I was before my daughter died and that I simply cannot see the world the same way anymore.  My eyes art different.  My heart is different.  Naturally, my perception is different.  Art is the manifestation of what I perceive with my eyes and my heart. 

This new work was very difficult to give myself permission to create.  It is dark and bold.  It is dark in a serious way but hopefully not morbid.  This series of work is the culmination of my inner search through the Hestia’s Hearth writing project.  The exhibit is called “Soul Quest”.  I hope you like it.

This first piece is called “Friendship Remembered”.  The friend it pays hommage to is my beloved Sandra Wheeler-Dunlevy who passed away from breast cancer recently after a long and heroic battle.  We met in a Buddhism course (hence the Buddha pendant) in university when I was grieving the recent death of my mother.  The materials used are acrylic paint, gold ‘leather paper’, a necklace with charm, and found wood.

“On The Wings Of Sorrow” reflects where I am in my journey of recovering from my daughter’s death.  Past grief, I am again experiencing the lighter, sweeter, easier sorrow that is about remembering with love instead of pain.  It is made of linoleum flooring, Nancy Drew book pages, wood stain, found wood, and faux butterflies.  The butterflies were a gift from me to my daughter.  I painted them black and added the word “sorrow” to the wings.

Sorry for the terrible blur on this one.  I must have moved when I took the shot.  It is called “Soul Seeker”.  It is made of a collaged mache sculpture, acrylic paint, metal letters, fabric, found wood, and small mirrors (with the obvious symbolism intended).

“The Pattern of Creativity and Confusion” is made of acrylic paint, linoleum flooring, and Nancy Drew book pages.  I was going to add a lovely piece of found wood to it but I love it the way it is because it is an accurate manifestation of how I so often feel.

This one is called “Contemplating The End”.  The emphasis is intended to be on the contemplation, not ‘the end’.  It is made of found wood, found antique buttons, and chain.  The random scattering of letters and numbers conveys the fact that so often it feels as though death is a random, accidental act of misfortune, whereas the found buttons with the words “the” and “end” in the mix along with the piece of wood shaped by the elements over time suggest that there is nothing random about it.

This is my absolute favourite piece and was sold last night to a doctor who loved it so much he insisted on taking it with him right away instead of waiting until the exhibit closed at the end of the month.  He is a doctor of integrated medicine and will hang the piece in his clinic’s waiting room for all his patients to enjoy.  He wants me to send him my business card to place alongside the piece in the waiting room.  What an amazing stroke of luck this is for me!  In my heart, as I hung this piece for the show, I believed that if everyone passed this piece by it would be proof the public is bloody well blind.  It is called “The Pattern of Life” and is made of found wood, a small mask, and a wasps nest adhered to the canvas with acrylic gel medium.

Hopefully Heather will be able to relate to this piece personally: it is called “Warming The Stone Artist”.  It is made of mache hearts, acrylic paint, a mache figure, and found wood.

This is a large piece made some time ago called “Tearing Down The Walls”.  It is made of wooden lath taken from a wall I tore down in my new house, acrylic paint, glue, and the orginal square nails reclaimed from the project as well as some found objects and a mache figure.

This final piece was made a little while ago in response to a dream I had and is a ‘poetic conversation’ I had in my mind with my deceased daughter.  It is called “Altogether Gone” (the bargain)

Are you altogether gone?

can you whisper in my ear

were you the owl in last night’s dream

or the strange old woman seer

before I can let you go

I really need to know

Are you altogether gone?

just whisper it in my ear

Stephanie K. Hansen copyright 2009