A vessel is a feminine archetype. They hold a child in the womb, gatherings of earth’s bounty, the waters of life…. Each “portrait’ in this series evokes the unique personality of one of my women friends.
The inspiration for the bowl paintings has been the desire to honor and articulate, in some creative way, the beautiful personalities of my women friends. They are all part of this work called “Girlfriends”.
The process is a joyous one for me. I think about one of my beautiful friends and the qualities of her essence as I see them.
Then begins a creative discernment process. As the quality of a friend’s humanity becomes clear, an image of bowl will either start to emerge in my imagination or I will find a bowl that already exists to put a concrete reality on the image. This part of the process comes from a deep place in my heart and soul.
And then I begin. First to sketch, then to refine and then to paint the image on 12X12 canvas. As part of the installation I don’t reveal which bowl is a portrait of a certain friend. I am continually amazed by how many of my friends have chosen their own bowl as their “favorite”.
The vessels that have emerged evoke the beauty and importance of the feminine archetype in our patriarchal western culture.
2009-2022
12″x12″ NFS