Blessing Way 18 x 24 Mixed Media on Canvas
There may be some tweaks in this painting's future before taking the official photographs, but there is a lot I really like about this one. I managed to get sheep into a painting that is not of a church. I first put Navajo women in a painting called the Guardian this winter.
I like the combination of the goddesses in the canyons with the people of that land, but it raises all sorts of issues about scale and perspective. I don't want to lessen the grandeur of the cliffs and monuments but I don't want the women to pale into insignificance. A friend raised the question about the facelessness of my goddesses and people. I told her I don't want them to be a specific woman. Too much detail and they are no longer every woman.
The other question raised by Blessing Way is ownership of what may be termed the Native American Spirituality. Here in the southwest we are swamped by Wannabes. I am not Navajo and yet I have always felt an infinity with their spiritual path or blessing way. I have decided I have come to that path not from a desire to wannabe like them but through the land as they have. There is something about the Colorado Plateau and its vast empty spaces and awe inspiring sandstone monuments shaped by the wind and the rain that leads you away from ownership of the land to being its partner through your journey. By putting simple people in the paintings with my goddesses I am trying to convey that marriage of body and soul, of land and spirit.
Churches are ever so much easier to paint.
Wow...great blending of all the elements in
ReplyDeletethis one. I feel you have indeed found the
path!
Lovely! Especially your "goddess"!
ReplyDeleteJacqui,
ReplyDeleteThese are as marvelous as we've come to expect from your work.
I like that the goddesses are very subtle in the first piece and I see them not upon first glance, but upon a second look. I also love the Navajo women and the birds in front of the sun. The marriage of body and soul and land and spirit is conveyed exquisitely.
In the second piece I liked the unexpected slight eroticism of the woman/arch, with the Navajo women, this time the more subtle subjects. To me, the earthy sexuality of women is suggested in this piece.
Thank you both for such nice compliments. And the great analysis, Bekkieann. I always wonder if others see what it is I try to convey
ReplyDeleteI agree with Bekkieann - I like that the women are so subtle in the first piece - you need not worry that you have made them look diminished. There is something about your choice of colour in all your paintings that is daramtic and often joyful and for me this bespeaks a spirtual and richly emotional connection to the land you are painting. Wannabes just couldn't do that.
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