Never question that icon painting and sacred meditation go hand in hand. It can help you become conscious of yourself, of the relationships you have with others, and the connection you have with God both within yourself and the eternal being that is in everyone.
How Icon Painting and Sacred Meditation Saved Me
When I was a child, my parents told me I could be anything I wanted – and I believed them. They treated the five of us equally, 2 girls and 3 boys. But as many parents of the 50’s and 60s they refrained from doting on us, and that made us each independent and very different.
I was born in New York, grew up in Massachusetts and both of my parents died in a plane crash when I was 12. A year later Kennedy was assassinated and 3 years later men would walk on the moon. What am I getting at here? The point is CHANGE.
Where Is God?
For me, change was familiar even if at times dramatic. I took up a life wondering how and if God had a hand in big and small events. I found sitting in nature was my fall back comfort zone to reflect on change,transformation, death and rebirth. Later I found even greater refuge in art. I had a sister who was a self proclaimed mystic, a brother apparently never satisfied with anything normal or predictable and another who is perhaps the kindest person I know of on the planet. The third brother once told me the greatest art in the world could be found in a simple drop of water. After 3 years at the Boston Museum of Fine Art School I moved to Mexico and married my husband, Valentin Gomez. Since then, we have lived a generous and abundant life of love, as artists working together for 42 years.
What I Have Learned?
The culture of Mexico has taught me to prepare food on an open hearth with a dirt floor and poverty is not really poverty. From 1978-2001 we traveled between two cultures, melding our individual lifestyles into one life of harmony and balance. I chose to become a practicing and committed catholic in 1986 and painted my first Byzantine style icon in 1992. For twenty five years, I have been influenced by the art form and tradition of Byzantium, working in the organic medium of egg tempera, which is in its most basic form, an egg yolk and fine ground stone like dirt.
After years of icon painting and sacred meditation, today, I can honestly say I am becoming Conscious through a relationship with Dirt.
Icon Painting 2018 to Present
In 2018 I began a body of work which reflects an ongoing dialogue in my head, about my love of the planet with Christ as my witness. The collection will be called “On Holy Ground” and hopefully stimulate thoughts about our beautiful planet earth, love, philosophy, and sacred image. Connecting threads between spirit and flesh has been a fierce passion all my life. For four decades I have used art as a money maker, a mediation, a lifestyle of disciple, a practice and a source for learning.
My rebellious and unorthodox iconography of earlier years has matured. The residency in New Zealand, at the Anglican Vaughan Park outside of Auckland will be a wonderful opportunity for two months of prayer and reflection at their invitation. Not to mention a studio to work in. I intend to use biblical text, meditation, and historical religious imagery as the tools to envision what I see as obvious. As In: We are connected, We all change like the seasons, We influence creation with our minds and actions. The way I perceive the value of spiritual life and the bliss it brings has influenced a complex range of image and emotion. Hopefully the work will reflect my discovery and potentially reveal more of the archetypal human matrix we share and influence more people to become conscious through a relationship with Dirt.
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