Newly completed Healing Goddess (next to Nigerian helmet mask) by Robyn Gordon
"Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that's given as a task....An artist's work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be our own." - Teresita Fernandez
Since I've just completed carving my healing goddess I thought I would share with those interested about what initially inspired me to carve her. The new carving is a late addition to a series of Healing Goddesses I carved several years ago.
From an old series several years ago.
A primitive Songye figure or Nkisi (from the Democratic Republic of the Congo) started my thought process about doing a series.
Image courtesy of Boris Kegel-Konietzko
I thought he was rather ugly at first though some would disagree because he has a raw, primitive energy and charm and in any case he was not created to be a work of art but an Nkisi. An Nkisi is a power figure that is believed to have protective powers for the owner and his family.
Wrapped around the large figure are a number of smaller figures which could be handed out to those who needed protection from evil or misfortune. When the need for protection had disappeared the small figures would then be returned to the bigger figure.
I fell in love with this Songye Ceremonial vessel. It is a gourd with an inner basket (containing potatoes, I think) and several miniature power figures attached to the outside.
I think the vessel has a feel-good quality about it as opposed to the slightly uneasy feeling I get from the Nkisi.
Nestled amidst the wood shavings on my worktable .... a favourite place to photograph my carvings.
It was important to me that my Healing Goddesses exuded a feel good energy and I can only hope that I've achieved that. It was certainly therapeutic to carve them.
We have returned from three glorious weeks at the Wild Coast, feeling replenished and at peace with the world.
Most days were soft and meditative, filled with winter sunshine and the hushed unfolding of waves on the sand.
I learned a new word from Mo yesterday.
Apricity: The word apricity represents a simple and familiar yet a very specific phenomenon - the sun's warmth on a cold winter's day. (Click on the word to read further)
It seems appropriate to introduce the word here since, the world and his wife..... dog.....goat and cow, within a kilometer's radius, seemed to wander down to the beach to stand in the sun, .....relishing apricity on a winter's day.
I walked around this bull several times, clicking my camera and he remained unperturbed. Just a twitch of tail and ear.
I can't imagine our holidays without the resident dogs. They add much joy and tail wagging to our days.
The sea poems of Pablo Neruda also seem appropriate here. Follow the link if you wish to read a few more.
The Sea by Pablo Neruda
I need the sea because it teaches me.
I don't know if I learn music or awareness,
if it's a single wave or it's existence,
or only it's harsh voice or it's shining
suggestion of fishes and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
in some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.
It's not simply the shells crunched
as if some shivering planet
were giving signs of it's gradual death;
no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment,
the stalactite from the silver of salt,
and the great god out of a spoonful.
What it taught me before, I keep. It's air
ceaseless wind, water and sand.
It seems a small thing for a young man,
to have come here to live with his own fire,
nevertheless, the pulse that rose
and fell in it's abyss,
the crackling of the blue cold,
the gradual wearing away of the star,
the soft unfolding of the wave
squandering snow with it's foam,
the quiet power out there, sure
as a stone shrine in the depths,
replaced my world in which were growing
stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion,
and my life changed suddenly:
as I became part of it's movement.
Need I say, this weathered plank and broken shell returned home with me
"Among the things the sea throws up,
let us hunt for the most petrified,
violet claws of crabs,
little skulls of dead fish,
smooth syllables of wood,
small countries of mother-of-pearl;
let us look for what the sea undid
insistently, carelessly,
what it broke up and abandoned,
and left behind us."
- Forget about Me by Pablo Neruda
More chiton shells to add to my collection
Limpets doing what limpets do.
An ox drawn sled (made out of branches) carries fire wood home
Cows in the mist
Fish for supper.
A misty end to the day
The SILVER SUMMER show begins tomorrow at FILLINGDON FINE ART in PIDDINGTON, UK. Details here. I have a few pieces on the show, including the tall story panel below.
"Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degrees of presence." - Alan Watts
I love to walk in nature and I especially love to walk alone. In South Africa .... or where I live anyway .... there are not many places one can do so safely. At the wild coast I walk alone for miles and as long as I keep the fishermen in sight (even just a dot on the horizon), I feel safe. It's a time that I unwind completely with not a worry in the world.
"It's when I'm walking that I come closest to an affection for myself." - Shawna Lemay
During the build up to my daughter's wedding we promised ourselves a healthy walking holiday at the wild coast once everything quietened down. Unfortunately that never happened because our fox terrier was badly savaged by our bull terrier. Her pelt was almost ripped right off her body resulting in an air pocket between flesh and fur. It's been over a month that her little body has been battling against the infection she developed under her skin but today I can finally say she has turned a corner in her recovery.
During this time of watching over her, whilst she fought for her life, my thoughts have taken me to our favourite beach walks for solace.
I found a few quotes on Shawna Lemay's blog that sum up why I find these walks such a balm to my spirit ......
"There is an element of repetition in the act of walking where you can forget. And there is a tiredness. A peacefulness. I think that when you are really alone you have a fragility. The feelings are more intense. You have more of a feeling of the eternity of things." - Frederic Gros
"And walking with a camera is yet another kind of walking. One's looking becomes more delicate, sharper, refined. One loses oneself in the walking, and then is lost again, while one focuses in on the leaf, twig, or dried seed pod that has attracted one's attention." - Shawna Lemay
I loved this post on Shawna's blog.
One can walk for days on a wild coast beach and never see a soul other than cattle and goats and perhaps the occasional herdsman with his dog.
For me, it's a walking meditation
kicking up water in the shallows for miles
dreaming of the totems I will carve
incorporating the pebbles and driftwood I've gathered
Catching fish for lunch every day makes one feel healthier
"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter.... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life." - John Burroughs
"The kind of dog you have will change the perfume of your walking. The degree to which your dog stops to sniff and mark territory, the pace you keep ...... " - Shawna Lemay
"Walking is important to my practice, a way to begin. It opens the route between the external world and the inner world of the studio. On my ritual paths, I take notice of changes that occur -- daily and seasonally -- recording what attracts my attention, 'navigating' my way through time." - Kim Kopp
"Walking..... is how the body measures itself against the earth" - Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A history of walking.
The name STRANDLOPER is an Afrikaans word meaning "beach walker". It is a term for San-derived people who lived by hunting and gathering along the sea shores of Southern Africa from prehistoric times until the second millennium AD. The term has been extended to refer to present day beach combers.
While we were on holiday in the eastern cape we came across many middens. One of them was particularly old and high. It formed a bank covered with grass but a landslide had ripped the bank open to reveal layer upon layer of shells at eye level. I did a little research and came across this post about Strandloper middens.
"... these piles of shells are often thousands of years old, and represent the last signs left by the Strandloper people, who belonged to the larger communities of either San or the Khoikhoi.... "
"The women would find some place in the dunes that was protected from the wind, and transform it into the family kitchen. They would shuck the shells and often prepare the food here as well. Pottery shards found at the midden sites indicate items of Stone Age crockery." - Chris Marais
After our holiday I was inspired to carve a Strandloper to remind me of the blissful days spent gathering pebbles and driftwood on wild beaches.
An idyllic week at the wild coast
We had Long Beach to our selves every day
Not another soul to be seen
Hours of walking, fishing and foraging
I'm drawn to the broken shells
especially the black turbans
which peel back to reveal spirals of rust
BREAKAGE by Mary Oliver
I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and scarred --
and nothing at all whole or shut, but battered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture
gone.
It's like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.
Our room had a little garret above it
which we named the eagle's aerie
We did a lot of holiday reading there
I savoured Donna Watson's exquisite book
The Beauty of Nothingness
and lost myself in several novels.
"Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too." - Iris Murdoch, The sea, the sea
