Don’t Forget

Once I got my new studio in working order, I had to find a way to get back into the swing of things. I have long known that for myself, I have to create and create in order to find the thread and then catching it and following it. I decided to start every studio time I had with creating an 8×6 inch collage on a panel just to get the flow going. One of the collages I created was this one below.

The scribble marks below the bird was actually created eons ago. As part of an exercise I had written my name over and over and over again and then I blew it up on a photocopy machine and then inverted the black and white. I found it recently while I was trying to organize and declutter my stuff my new studio space is smaller and decided that after almost 2 decades of being in a pile hidden in a folder, I should finally use it.

Putting it under the bird, sparked something in my brain. And I started thinking about hidden connections, interconnectedness, roots, reciprocity……………..

And a new series began. This below is the first of the series.

The word that keeps running through my head is ‘reciprocity’ and the idea that life on this planet depends on the covenant of reciprocity. That we must give back in equal measure to what we receive. That we all depend on each other. And also feeling the gratitude to what the earth gives us freely. What is it about humans that we have forgotten this gift and to be grateful for it instead of just continuing to take and consume. Well, not all humans. There is a growing voice for stewardship and reciprocity and even some Indigenous led movements are conferring legal personhood on rivers and mountains.

Can we recognize our kinship with the other living beings around us? Is it about seeing ourselves reflected back to ourselves?

I know, I’ll never get answers to these questions. But I think about them often.