Night Vision

In the earliest hours of morning our thoughts connect 

 two worlds.  Dreams open doors into a fluid world. In daylight the thick shell of the world hides from 

us from the truth we seek. 

We forget the stars are still there. 

This is my story of remembering.  It is one of many, for when we are not forgetting, we are remembering.  And each story tries to remember, but in the telling it falls short.  So the Storyteller is born again.

In the middle of November I was not sleeping well.  One particularly windy night I lay in bed, staring into the darkness and listening to the forest howl outside my window.  As I drifted between waking and sleeping a vision began to form, one I did not welcome.  I saw a darkness surround all beings, enveloping the earth.  It was thick, a cloud of deep thick charcoal fog.  I entered into it and saw with my heart its fullness.  Suffering.  So much suffering.  It was not just suffering to come, it was suffering that had been and it was suffering that is.  It was all existing in one place and one time.  I saw it with my entire being and I lay in bed weeping.

It was 3 in the morning and I was sobbing, trying not to wake Dale.  I lay there for an hour.  All beings, humans, animals, trees and the earth itself all wept with me.

Untitled Work in Progress

This was a pretty dark place, even for me.

After an hour I knew I had to get out of bed and go into the woods. I woke Dale.  He was concerned when he saw that I was crying. I told him. He said, “Take a flashlight.”

At first I didn’t turn on the flashlight.  I wasn’t in a hurry, so I thought I could just step slowly and carefully, letting my vision adjust to this very dark night.  It was a Wisconsin November.  So there were dry brittle leaves everywhere, and, on a windy night like this, they tend to pile up.  So, my first fright came when I stepped into a pile of leaves that wasn’t there the night before.  My foot lifted the leaves, taken up by the wind, farther than I would have imagined. I was surrounded by the sound of rustling leaves and my pounding heart.  In the blackness I stood frozen, hearing movement all around, and I decided I wasn’t so opposed to the flashlight after all.

The Wind

At that point it occurred to me that I would rather see a creature of the night before stepping into its space, so the light stayed on as I carefully made my way to a special spot in the forest of pines.  It is a place where a large tree has lain fallen for years, so much so that younger trees grow through it.  Animals take shelter in it.  Moss grows on it.  I have always loved this spot.  When I got there it took me awhile to find a comfortable seat.  The woods feel ominous at night. I chose to have my back against a young tree, something to lean on, and it gave me a small sense of protection. 

The wind was still blowing fitfully, shaking the trees and loosening their dead.  Before turing off my flashlight I scanned my perimeter for potential Widow Makers, or in this case Widower Makers.  Then, with a touch of my thumb, total darkness.

House of the Woods

Oh how hard it was to keep that light off.  A breaking branch a few feet from me was enough to make me freeze.  For what seemed like hours, but was more likely 30 minutes, I sat frozen.  My eyes were wide open, but, at first, I saw nothing.  Slowly I began to see.  There seemed to be a substance to the air, as if every single molecule was coming out of hiding.  The air, the trees, the leaves and I were all tiny dots vibrating in and out of my sight.  Looking up I saw a falling star.  In this light the trees are the negative space, and the distant stars are the positive space.  For a moment I was neither light nor dark, I was only perception, as everything around me changed from one to the other.

Molecules

For an hour at least my thoughts bounced back and forth between wonder and terror.  Of course I could calmly remind myself the biggest danger that night was a coyote.  But a noisy rustle in the black space around me made me imagine more.  Believe it or not, this was the first moment I recognized a connection between my choice to sit in the woods and the story of Siddhartha.  As the account of his becoming the Buddha is told, Siddhartha despaired at the suffering in the world.  His search for an answer led him to sit under a Bodhi tree, meditating outdoors for seven days and seven nights.  My 2 hours in the cold on a fallen tree paled in comparison to his 168 hours. I laughed at all the times I sat on a comfortable cushion in my heated home to meditate.  Nature is essential to awakening us to this life, and we humans so often hide from it.  In a terrible separation from the earth I had forgotten the lessons it has to teach me.  In my darkest moment, I remembered, and I stepped outside.  To be inside of our deepest consciousness we have to be outside in the Natural World, not inside of the Manmade World.  To the degree to which we the Modern Humans have violently torn ourselves from our connection to nature, we have suffered.

I swear I remember there being a moment in the story of enlightenment where a giant cat approaches Siddhartha.  So, I thought, maybe I needn’t be quite so fearful.  A lion or tiger would be bad. Back to fear. Forgetting.

Deep Sleeper - Intermediary

Of course the point wasn’t Lions and Tigers and Bears.  We do have occasional bears and wolves and even the rare cougar sighting in this part of the State. I knew there was a reason I was out there in the cold and it wasn’t to try to guess which wild beast would eat me for dinner.  I could fear the wind, the animals, even the possibility of a human in the woods, probably most dangerous of all.  I had to let it all go. The most frightening part of being alone in the darkness in the woods was also the most awakening.  Remembering. 

I began to look each fear squarely in its face and release it.  I soon found myself remembering them all, from paralyzing terrors to the less obvious ones. The ones that linger for days, muted and pale but persistent in their nagging.  People who had frightened me, I saw their fear.  People that had hurt me, I saw their pain.  People I had frightened and people I had hurt, I saw my blindness.  I saw fear and pain passed on from parent to child, from master to slave, from teacher to student.  Acts of violence replacing the wisdom of old with inherited pain and terror.  Victim becomes perpetrator and the lamb becomes the hungry beast at the door. There was no bad, no good, no dark, no light. Only attaching and letting go.  With each passing fear I felt an infinite lightness that cannot be expressed with words, although LOVE is a good one to try.  This was a special kind of night vision.  Seeing through the dark.    

Artic Spirits

It was at this point I realized the woods were becoming more and more visible in the earliest light of the day.  As I had passed through the darkest hour of the morning I had seen through at least some of my blindness.  As the trees became solid, once again I could connect each sound with its source.  I looked up at the sky.  Not a single star in my sight.  I would have to go on memory.  Remembering.  I got up, a little stiff, and walked toward the house.  I would put on some coffee and try to talk about this.  The things the darkness commands us to know. Fears are only passing moments, but we give them strength when we try to suppress them.  In their suppression they are squeezed and wiggled into our souls and the passing darkness takes a solid heavy form.  This heavy load is so light in its release.  Walking back to my warm house I knew I would struggle to find the words to tell this story. And in the telling they would fall short. And the storyteller is born again.  

From Dreaming to Dancing

More Jackal... she is Dancing Jackal, after a long journey via magic arrow.   
During the long and reckless journey she is pierced by the arrow
 and has to land in a canyon where there is no escape. 
Dancing Jackal does not have the patience and reserve that Dreaming Jackal has, 
but she shines like the moon.

       

          While trapped in the canyon, with only a few hours of sunlight, 
           Dreaming Jackal noticed the light of the moon during the dark night, 
and became greedy for more.
This makes Dreaming Jackal a servant of the moon.

      

She tried to jump through the moon, but the moon jumped through her.

After the moon jumped through Jackal she glowed all night and hid in a cave all day.
Now she is  trapped in darkness all day long.

Having suffered many days in darkness Jackal became frustrated with the the silence,
and learned to play the rhythms of the moon.

I hope you are enjoying the story of the Sentient Beings.  This story has no beginning and no end, so you can join in at anytime.

These are drawings from my sketchbook; some will be made available as prints on Society6 

at Dawn Patel Art: http://society6.com/dawnpatel

You can also follow the story of Jackal on facebook or Instagram, where I post as I go along.

Wishes

When I was younger I wished to be appreciated, for belonging and acceptance, and to be a famous artist.
I also wanted an ark of my very own, including a tiger, a soft-shelled turtle, every breed of dog in my very dog-eared copy of "Man's Best Friend" and a Platypus.  I also wanted a Kiwi bird, although they are extinct.

Woman who walks with Monkeys.  "Mysterystones" on Instagram

So.. some come true, some don't.  Sometimes what we wish for is just what we need, and other times it's a fantasy that we pass our time with, like a familiar friend that doesn't ask for explanations.

Some of our dreams change with us.  I learned as an adult when you love and accept yourself it comes naturally from others who love and accept themselves.  When I remember to be grateful for this gift I can give myself and others, everything works out just as it should.

My wish to be a famous artist has changed to a dream of making art everyday and sharing it with the world.

"Dawn Patel Art" on Instagram

My wish for the menagerie of creatures has turned into a world of imaginary creatures in my sketchbook.  (And two dogs and a cat at home)

The hands are trees and the trees have eyes.

And now... wishes for the future!
I wish to grow old and wear a yellow housecoat and chase the bus around.
I wish to grow old and hang out with the young street artists and breakdance and spray paint on the walls.
I wish to go canoeing through the Amazon at 80.
I wish to see the trees seeing me and talk to them.
I wish to run through the snow with my grandson and remind him of magic when he lets the world in too much.
I wish that any time any of my friends remembers me they picture a laughing face.

Me in my yellow housecoat.

Chance and Circumstance

When life hands you lemons, make something nourishing, and get stronger

It's been a long time since I've posted.  A lot has happened and I have not been in the right frame of mind to write about it.  When we are navigating through unexpected changes in our lives, all of our energy goes into steering the mothership.  It's been 2 weeks since my partner Dale and I decided to pull the plug on our brick and mortar business and it feels like it's been months.

I don't feel like it's necessary to dwell on the reasons our business isn't opening, the short story is this: a less than adequate building with an out of town landlord who didn't keep his word.  That's short, and WAY sweeter than it could be.  Life goes on.  And ours has, in a way that makes me feel like I'm swimming with the tide now, and not against it.

In the Winter I drew this to imagine the summer, now I am framing prints to hang in Lost Moth Gallery, Egg Harbor WI

In the two weeks since we decided to move out of the building I have been contacted by 4 business owners that want to display my work.  I have been busier than I could imagine framing prints and making new pieces to put into a local gallery.  I found out there were still some openings in a few Door County Art Fairs and am planning to show my work in person this summer.  The saying is old and cliche, but OH SO TRUE:  When one door closes...  The doors are many, not only doorways to new opportunities, friendships and experiences, but also the doors of the imagination, doors of possibilities, and of course.... the doors of perception.

New Clothing Projects: Find these at Olde Ellison Bay Days in Door County this June!

Of course I am happy to have opened these new doors to income generating opportunities; after all the bills don't stop piling up when plans change.  But my most exciting discovery has been the new ideas blossoming like the Trilliums outside my window.  For the past 10 springs I have been fully immersed in opening a retail shop for the tourist season.  This spring I have been at home, watching the forest floor explode into white, pink, yellow and green.  Today Dale and I listened to an Oriole calling hopefully for a mate all day long, when this evening the call was finally answered.  I noticed the subtle differences of green in the trees, the shifts in the wind, and a bird's nest resting on the fulcrum of a fallen branch.

I have had time to revel in the beauty of random events, and what they can lead to.

My day of marveling at nature led to an afternoon of creative outbursts, and I have begun to translate my experiences of the day into art.  A little assemblage...

I call this one Lone. 

And finally, I have the first exciting ideas forming for an interactive project using my painted stones.  Inspired and propelled by my interest in randomness and chance vs patterns and destiny, I am embarking on what will hopefully be a long term project affecting many friends and strangers.  There's more to come on this later, for now I'm referring to it as "Mystery Stones" and I am painting away!

Hope you like a good MYSTERY!!

For more information about upcoming art fairs, galleries or solving the mystery of the stones keep up with Dawn Patel Art on facebook, or join my mailing list.  Links can be found on this blog.  I hope you are all having your own creative rebirth this spring!

Finally, I have to credit Peter Malik for the title to this post.  It's an album I have been listening to for over 9 years.  That's right, we call those CDs these days.

Buddha Pages

                          Being a seller on etsy requires more than talent, creativity and passion.  It is a very competitive marketplace where one must consider most choices with asute business sense.  Because I have been moving away from my life as a business owner and back into the studio, I often struggle with the double edge sword of self employment.  The work is hard, and I still have to make choices that are smart from a business mindset,as well as inspiring to my artistic mindset.  Creating an affordable art piece that is unique, one of a kind and inspiring to the viewer is a challenge, but one I am beginning to enjoy as an important part of my artistic journey.

The Buddha pages are a new idea I brought to my etsy page as a way to combine the lessons I have learned from creating products that sell well on etsy with the projects that are on my table and close to my heart.  I have been sketching flowers, animals and images derived from my studies of Medieval art this winter as preparatory and preliminary work for my large paintings.  The sketches at times develop into finished pieces in their own right.  I offer prints of many of my drawings and paintings, but I wanted to come up with something more.  When I'm at work on a painting I so often rely on chance, or what at times feels like serendipity, to bring the meaning of an image into focus.  

Combining the images from my sketchbooks with pages from a vintage book is not a completely original idea.  Artists print on found paper, especially in the world of assemblage.  The personal significance for me is the particular book I chose.  I have spent many hours sifting through old books since my father passed away three years ago.  He was a voracious reader, and he loved to share everything he learned from his books.  Many of my memories of family vacations at our northwoods cabin getaway are of my father either reading on his recliner or asleep with a book on his chest.  He was so happy with his books.  I don't read nearly as much as my dad, but I do love books and I have had a keen interest in Buddhism in the past year, reading everything I can get my hands on.  So, going through my dad's collection, the text on the Buddha's life, "Buddha and the Gospel of Buddhism" 1969, has been the perfect choice for a backdrop for my sketches and studies.   I love to layer an image full of symbolic meaning with a page that somehow relates to the image, inviting further contemplation.  When I look at them now I see them as small versions of the layering process I meticulously work through in my multi media painted works.

Adaptation

I invite readers to check out the Buddha pages on etsy.  Each one has a special meaning that I begin to explain in the listings, leaving the rest of the discovery to each viewer.  At the top of this page is a link to etsy, it will take you to the shop: Dawn Patel Art, and the Buddha page section can be easily found there.  

Beneath the Snow

I would love to hear what meanings you discover in these small and precious pages.

Spirit Helpers - Arctic Peoples

Close up from "Spirit Helpers- Arctic Peoples"

Last December we were settling into our new life, working daily in the studio and living in a small house in the woods in Door County Wisconsin.  It happened to be an early, and somewhat snowy winter.  The studio is in a very open area; being a farming region, we are surrounded by fields.  The result is a view out of my window that often looks like the arctic tundra, snow blowing across a palette of white, gray and blue, with a backdrop of a dark tree line and big sky that often calls me to the window at sunset with its breathtaking and bone chilling beauty.

When a friend from Europe contacted me with a request for a commissioned painting I was thrilled of course, and when she told me she was fascinated with Arctic Peoples and culture, I had to marvel at the serendipity.  Looking out my window, I thought I already have a great deal of inspiration in my daily routine.  So began a long distance collaboration of ideas between Brussels, Belgium and Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, connected by gusts of snow and the howling of the bitter wind.

Research and Inspiration

Before embarking on a new painting I spend a little time hunting and gathering.  The inspiration that Kerstin felt from her new found fascination and attraction to Arctic Life opened the door to many possibilities and directions for research.  I started with a gorgeous and sparse film called "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen," an Inuit Film that opened my eyes to the qualities of Arctic life that I have come to deeply admire. http://www.isuma.tv/en/isuma-productions

After watching the film, I contemplated the harsh day to day realities of Arctic life and the pared down and elegant cultural solutions to these challenges developed in Inuit culture.  I dove further into the concept of Spirit helpers and Shamanic Culture, an aspect of the film that I loved.  An online search led me to the work of Abraham Anghik Ruben, an Inuit carver whose work and life story I won't get into here, but would urge readers to investigate, not only for art, but also for the lesson in history: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/abraham-anghik-ruben-the-intermediarysculptor-carves-inuit-legends-of-his-heritage/2012/10/25/6fbbaf12-1d5d-11e2-b647-bb1668e64058_story.html

After a week or more of reading, watching, and reflecting I had my own ideas forming.  The physical and spiritual life of the Intuit ignited my imagination, the all too common damage caused by the introduction of Western culture and it's colonizing mentality dug into my heart, and the cold winds outside my window haunted my dreams.  I was ready to begin.

The three levels of existence are beginning to appear.

The Blood and Guts: Paintings have a life of their own.

My painting immediately began to evolve into three levels, and I saw, in my interpretation of Arctic life, three very clear experiences of reality which, unlike our Western experience, are not compartmentalized.  The levels of existence: the human world, the natural world, and the spirit world are all very intertwined and interdependent.  My personal belief is that, despite our Western dichotomies, this is always the reality of experience.  In the vision of Inuit Life I have captured they are all one, and working together with elegant grace.

Images of a Swan Maiden, fox spirit and a canoe as a vehicle of transpiration between the worlds are my own iconography, a symbolic language and story that developed while painting.  Although not directly borrowed, the symbols and characters that arose were very much influenced by Ruben's Sea Goddess and the spirit helpers in the film.

Color, texture and pattern: Sun and blood add life to the monochromatic landscape.

During the weeks I spent painting this piece, Kerstin and I occasionally emailed each other with thoughts about the painting.  I shared my discoveries and she sent images and ideas that inspired her.  Although the exchanges were brief and arrived over the tangled web of the internet crossing an ocean, it seemed as if our minds were meeting in a way that transcended words.  I would describe it as a meeting of not just minds, but of hearts and souls.  The serendipity continued to inspire new developments and strengthened my trust in the process.  Doing a commissioned piece is not always easy for an artist.  Expectations can hinder creative thought and and outside influences can muddy the clarity of the process.  I am fortunate to have had very good experiences, I only take commissions if I feel the buyer loves the innate qualities of my work, not just the superficial formal look of it, and he or she does not have a restrictive definition of art.  Each painting has a life of it's own, and when it is a good commission, it has two minds behind it, working together.  And when this happens it's magic.  I often charge less than my customers expect for commissions, because to me these projects are a gift, and a shared effort and experience.

Finished Painting with fabric backing and bamboo rod.

Technical Issues

The final issues with this piece were technical, how to ship this Belgium without adding hundreds to the price.  I solved this by sewing the canvas to a large piece of fabric.  I chose a Batik from Ghana in deep blue and gold.  The African pattern and colors worked so well with the painting I had to chuckle.  A little symmetry between continents, pulling us all together.  I added leather loops on top that support the entire piece with a bamboo rod.  When Kerstin opened her shipment all she had to do was unroll it and hang it from a couple of nails on the wall!

She emailed me to tell me she cried when she saw it in person, and it hanging on her wall it felt like it had always been there.  What an amazing experience for both of us.  I couldn't be luckier, doing what I do.

In the middle of painting this I had a little story arise.  It captures, for me, the essence of this experience.

Fox speaks to the swan maiden. Both are protected by the sun spirit. Fox tells the maiden, "you are going to grow up and forget, but never forget. Those who have grown up do not know everything. They have forgotten more than they remember."

May we all find ways to remember.