Quickening -- Official Artist's Statement

Artist’s Statement
An artist’s statement in a neat, tidy paragraph?!? A challenge, as the inner workings of the Creative Spirit are so profound, and yet so subtle, so mysterious and yet so bold, so earth-shattering and yet so sensitive, so striking yet so gradual that to express in so limited words is unjust. This is where the art comes in – it has the power to bring spirit into form, marrying will with understanding to share an essence of life which touches, reverberates, and thus returns to the very spirit from which it originates.
Living the artful life is about the ongoing creative processing of idea into will. Spirit conceives a thought or an idea (In Genesis God spoke and it was so.) There is a listening response (Here am I.) Then a processing, a sitting with, a gestation. Then comes a push to action, a laboring which eventually results in a new and original form. It is an inspiration/expression process, as natural as breathing. The Spirit choosing to create “that on which to shed love’” in the premier act of creative will, continues in we the forms thus created, for we have that Spirit indwelling. Creative Life continues...
Experiencing this life journey, this great world of contrast and its moments of beauty, of pain, of ecstasy, of despair, of comfort, of anxiety, there can be found balance, acceptance, strength and peace. It is in such beautiful moments of enlightenment that I am compelled to respond, to decide, to capture and mark them in some way, for my own affirmation, and perhaps to share.
Women have great potential as healers, and also as warriors. We have always known this, yet seldom does one master the skill needed to tap into this strength and use it for its highest good. We become shape shifters in order to please others. We fill our minds with fears and problems, rather than still ourselves to find Center, in which to trust, to listen, to know. We long for connection on a profound level, yet busy our minds to tune out the Spirit’s voice in our lives.
The poet Rilke speaks of the spiritual act of creating and sexual pleasure being closely intertwined. Do we profoundly experience the sexual only to the depth at which we are experiencing the spiritual and creative aspects of life? Do we women truly identify with what it means to be a creator, one who brings spirit into form, to heal in Word and in act, to be the key to the proliferation of love on this planet? Do we have the strength to accept such an idea, such a calling?
In showing this work, I cast off the anxieties, the methods of sabotage used to avoid, to hide, to avert my eyes from this calling. I have felt the quickening. In great faith and in the strength built into my soul through unique and countless experiences of life, I step out, naked, open, alive and awash in Love’s light, ready to receive; ready to give.
"Quickening" is the title I am giving to this first solo show of personal work. Here also is a collection of journal entries from the past seven months that have helped to guide me to this point in the process of bringing the formless to form.