capsules of language (useless as shafts of cathedral light)

This piece was started by Shelley and then went to Maryam, on to Mario and Termeh...Candace finished and titled it.

rejection

comments by Candace: This piece is titled "Rejection", started by Maryam, then worked on by Mario, and then Termeh before coming to me. While thinking about working on it...I began circling it, having a dialog with it, alternating between liking it and not liking it. Thinking of ways into it and rejecting them. REJECTION. I thought the interesting thing about rejection/(Rejection) is that it can promote healing. As I finally began working on this piece...I started adding little squares of maps and gluing them over some of the squares that Maryam had painted. She had used symbols for men, women, heart, devil, pitchers, many things. Since the title is Rejection I started by rejecting these symbols, covering them with little abstract portions of maps...symbolizing paths taken, veered off from, following dead ends, inserting an oasis, ges range (read guess), on through death valley, forks in the road, areas permanently closed (over a tear), a stone connection for a fragmented heart, salt lakes/ salt well. I added tiny fragments of language, useless as shafts of cathedral light. I was absorbed in the information in each little square, the symbolism, the graphic qualities, the colors.
When I was satisfied with my maps...my/I gravitated toward the henna tattoos that Mario had inserted and around which Termeh had painted dark gray/an impenetrable dark gray behind her ethereal clouds. I found it disturbing/this gray surrounded the tattoo in a way I found claustrophobic and yet made me wander that area like a labyrinth until I exited and knew what to do. Intuitive 5th Chakra symbol over the henna tattoo. After some research, I found that the 5th chakra represents the possibility for change, transformation, and healing. I knew it was the right thing for this piece. I had to marvel at the universe and it's mysterious ways. Rejection/Healing...one and the same.


















First piece to be completed was started by Maryam...went then to Mario , Termeh, Candace and Shelley last.

family tree

final version of Family Tree as created by Termeh



......comments by Candace

Started and titled by Mario this piece had a delicate pencil drawing of a face in wash of brown ink...a wallpaper collage...
It went next to Maryam...and stayed with her for a long time....the piece emerged with incense paper collage and some intricate trees on the bottom, some beads, a coin glued to it, a tiny red thread hanging off the lower right corner was my favorite touch....the blood line. Next the piece went to Shelley..who covered it with rice paper and added some delicate geometric lines, arcs, spatters, which are intregal with her work and an abstract portion on one side which looked to me like an eye.
When the piece came to me...... I thought it was finished and despaired of being able to find a way into it. I kept feeling that the beads looked like they had a membrane containing them...and I was so bothered by that, the first thing I did was to smash the beads with a hammer...which left a devastation on the page. An uncharacteristic, decisive and war-like action. Then I started working with a geometric pattern of an octagonal tile floor...which I think of as a “grounding” provided by family...which can be taken several ways. This area grew and covered the eye which was scrutinizing me as I worked! I then added roots to the orange triangle at the top of the page. The roots of ancestors as metaphor, growing downward, connecting us to the past.

An area in the middle of the page became a nest-like shape of sharp points..... like family, prickly ....but a a birth place, an oasis. Emblematic of family relationships.... loving, prickly, similar, polar opposite, intense, complicated, same cloth , different patterns, but still the place of origins, the safe haven, bloodlines. The last thing I did was splatter some blood red watercolor....the blood of family....staining the page. I ended up mesmerised by what I had done..in that it contained agressive action, respect for the concept suggested by the title, a bit warlike in my approach, ending with tenderness, history, humor and blood. Now, satisfied with the piece. I e-mailed Termeh...... her turn to finish the piece.

Bow To Your Chair

Started by Candace this is the third piece to be finished....It went from Candace to Shelley, then on to Maryam, Mario and finally to Termeh.

thinking of You....

Second to work on this piece....I began, feeling Termeh's influence, I created a map of my handprint implying a subtle spiraled path (with sharp points to lean into, thrust faults, thrust faults inferred, and fault lines) continuing Shelley's penciled geometric shape and wandering into soft colors, paths, flowing water, ponds, meadows, borders, meanderings....bumps, lumps, the terrain and colors echoing my life's lines while the curvaceous dried eucalyptus leaf floats above reminding us of our buddha nature, nature itself, floating gently down through the precise lines we draw, to the earth....where we all influence each other. I used gouache and ink.
Candace














this piece was started by Shelley and sent to Candace, then Termeh and on to Mario.......

Long Journey

“sleights \of hand (lashed to the edge) of the precipice”


started by Termeh, on to Mario and then Maryam, Shelley, and last to Candace

Inside the Lines

This is the second piece to be finished......Started by Candace it went next to Termeh and then Mario, on to Mayam and finished by Shelley who renamed it Imaginary Lotus.

Candace comments: This just happened. I wanted to paint a pure white buddha, but one thing led to another and this was the result.....I kept telling myself to paint through ugly...and kept going until the piece let me stop. This painting still amazes me because it was not what I had intended, at all...it sort of materialized on the page. I was following the specs for painting a Buddha and I liked that concept. I think I ended up in the Buddha without clear intention to do so. I do not have a feeling about whether it is good or not...just that it is.
I guess that is the goal of Buddism...so maybe I succeeded, I don’t know. My crown chakra tingled and the fire grew wilder....then the sharp points, there must be sharp points.

I used gouache, ink, colored pencil, ink.

Termeh's comments: When I first saw this piece, I had no idea what to do with it. It stayed in its envelope and, except for a couple of quick glances, I didn't look at it until almost a month later. During this time, ideas about another project were breweing, this time, weeks later, I pulled this piece out of it's envelpe and knew exactly what to do.

For me prints have always signified memories, And so, wood grains, which register a tree's growth and life, are also evidence of memory. I've been using wood, wood prints, and the tree image as a metaphore in my work for years and thought, what better to go wiht ameditating Bhuddah than trees?!

medium: lino cut print, ink pen, pencil anc charcoal, dry pigment.