Grandmothers

Grandmothers
Mixed Media on Canvas
2008

This is a painting of my grandmothers. Like the twisting of the braid, the winding road that lead our forebears to meet and mix and create has lead right down to us, caught in the plaiting of history and time. We are the way between, the observer of the past and the ones who continue to hope for the future. The present moment, our Now, is like the smoke from the smudge, drifting up on the air, cleansing, entreating. There are seven tendrils of smoke in this painting - of the burning sage - that speak of seven generations. Before us, after us, it's all the same.

Letters encircle the drum forms in the corner. Writing, that gift of Odin gleaned from the ether as he hung upon Yggdrasil as a sacrifice of himself to himself. nine days he hung and brought us a way to preserve our thoughts, our stories, our histories and legends.

These things that are passed down from generation to generation under the tutelage and watchful care of our grandmothers, if not in the flesh, then in their spirit.


---

Of interest to a few:

The smudge bowl in the painting was given me by Terrance Houle in Banff, December 2006