Spring 2017: Member Submissions, Light in the Dark: Art As a Sane Voice in an Insane World

“In times of darkness humor carries me forward. These Sandwiches were all made before this particular troubling time, but all reflect the need to face adversity and lunacy with laughter and art.” – Lin Lisberger

Ed McCartan

The light in these dark times often needs to come from  within as well as from the community.  Seeing beauty in natural forms helps us respond as creative people.  Out of the deep forest, the entangled garden and the storm light and strength can come.  Going to nature is my response to assert the interconnectedness of all beings.

 

Ruth Sylmor

During this time when the world seems askew and inside-out, I turn to poetry.

The Peace of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

Nikki Millonzi

I created Rainbow Warrior 31 years ago in response to the removal of native families in the Four Corners area of the southwest from their tribal native lands around Big Mountain. They were relocated so The Peabody Coal Company could strip mine coal. The elders were not happy.

Still today, the energy wars continue as fossil fuel companies plunder sacred native lands and threaten our planet. The elders standing, dancing and praying peacefully on the frigid grounds of Standing Rock shine light into the dark drive of these energy companies. In the drive for profits, the Dakota Access Pipeline aims to move dirty oil at the price of harming our water supplies, disregarding native lands and the rights of tribal treaties and agreements and destroying our planet.

May many Rainbow Warriors fight on!

June Kellogg

Walking in nature has been the place where I’ve found light in the current atmosphere of political darkness. It is the place where I’m able to breathe and let all the daily political news dissipate from my mind. I’ve recently used my painting to express my belief that nature is not here to be dominated. It is not a commodity to be used to increase our standard of living or to increase our amount of consumption.

There are so many problems right now with water and food production that it is imperative that we begin to think globally about what is happening to the world’s resources. We must recognize and honor our interdependence with nature and realize that we are all connected by it. We must consume less, pollute less, share more, recycle more, protect nature, and create a more sustainable earth.

Heidi Daub

Selected and edited definitions of “light” from Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 2nd edition.

luminous energy, electromagnetic radiation to which the organs of sight react
kindle; ignite
to come into existence or being
the aspect in which a thing appears or is regarded
something that affords illumination
to brighten with animation or joy
to clarify
the state of being visible
a gleam or sparkle in the eyes
spiritual awareness; enlightenment
to accept or understand
to be discovered or revealed, to begin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paula Dougherty

The theme of enlightenment is dear to my heart. In art, I attempt to depict the highest level of love and wisdom “i” can conceive of.   Routinely,  little buddha-like images pop out on small papers; I search for the higher-self in life drawings and portraits; paint plant paintings enthusiastically in the garden; and explore outer/inner space tirelessly in meditation and the abstract realm.

 

 

Anita Clearfield

 

Michael Branca

“Paint? Paint!”

 

 

Marcus Parsons

These works explore aspects of cooperation. They explore issues that commonly arise within ourselves and with each other.

Two implicit questions:
1. Self and other—what might we make of them?
2. What is involved in cooperating toward ends that we all seek? Among those ends: peace, harmony, compassion toward each other (in spirit and in deed), shared prosperity, mutual tolerance and respect, equality (i.e., of access to opportunity, power, privilege, liberty, etc.).

 

 

Anne Scheer

“The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”  Emma Lazarus

 

Lisa Mossel Vietze

I picked up a camera in 1998 with the intention of making landscape images full of drama with grand, far-off vistas in which I could hope to escape from childhood misery.

But what my images came to reveal is the power and intimacy of smaller landscapes, like that of a flower. I was increasingly drawn to the subtleties of petal, leaf and stem; I stopped chasing the horizon and began to search my own backyard.

A flower is the plant’s highest expression of self, as well as a promise of a new generation, giving of its energy for creating seeds. I’m often in awe of the color or design when I’m making a flower image. In this process, I continue to heal.

Flowers … become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of the physical form and the formless.

[ some words from Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth.]