Resilient Heart 4 Art
Collage/Paintings
Nature Lover in the City
This collage was inspired by the understanding that everything we truly love makes itself known wherever we are. In an urban environment, a nature lover's head is still filled with flowers and her eyes will scan the surroundings for pinecones, pods and bird nests, even in the most unlikely of places.
Demeter's Dream
This collage was inspired by the Ancient Greek myth of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone. It expresses the universal themes of loss and resilience in a daughter's journey to independence and the hopeful message of an eventual mother and daughter reunion when the journey is successful.
Owl Omen
On New Year's Day 2025, an owl visited my yard, inspiring this collage. In some spiritual traditions, owls are symbols of wisdom, insight and mystery. An owl sighting can symbolize personal transformation in navigating the darker aspects of life, coming out stronger on the other side.
Exuberance
In those moments when something new and surprising happens, pause and pay close attention and you might sense an exuberant inner child leaping with joy.
Remembering Scotland
In 2024, I traveled in Scotland for a month. What has stayed with me are the carpets of the magenta heather in bloom, brilliant purple wildflowers both delicate and bold against every shade of green moss and ferns. And the castles! So many beautiful castles!
Being Joy
Being Joy was created during an art class in 2011, the very first time I put paint to canvas. At the time, I was grieving. Beginner's mind freed me from any constraints about color theory or composition and allowed me to relax into not-knowing. The result was an experience of being in flow which lasted the full two-hours of this painting class. A year or so later, I found this Rumi poem that captured what I believe is true about sorrow - that it is inseparable from joy. I was struck by how well Rumi's poem and my painting fit together.
Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves from
the bough of your heart,
so that fresh, green leaves
can grow in their place.
​
~ Rumi (13th century poet & Sufi mystic)
The Message
The Message began as a painting that remained unfinished until years later, when it morphed into a collage. The addition of a house in the woods on a moonlit night, a crow sitting in a tree with a gold key hanging from a branch and an approaching visitor delivering a message, begs the questions, "who lives in this house" and "what might the message be?"
In the Cards
In the Cards began life as a painting that morphed into a collage. The little girl is holding a broken rose, a symbol of loss. She is wearing a satin dress, but there are no other clues about what the fortune teller has predicted for her future. What fate do the cards hold for this little girl? In life, will she draw the fourth ace or, with the hand she was dealt, is she already lost? Is the owl merely observing or alarmed as her fate unfolds?
Hidden Gems
Hidden Gems was created during an experience of flow in which shapes seemed to appear hidden in the canvas itself.
Autumnal Magic
Autumnal Magic was created on an autumn afternoon as I contemplated the colors of nature outside my window. While this plant does not exist in reality, these colors are ones I most love...olive, gold, burgundy and rust.
