Star People

We all come from the stars!

We are all star people!  Recently I completed a commission for a priest who had moved parishes.  To celebrate his time in his previous parish he asked that I write  an icon depicting five people from his church.  The five were chosen for different reasons but all had played an important part in his ministry and spiritual journey.  When he commissioned me he said he had been inspired by the 3 Mothers triptych I had written for the Bishop of London.  He especially liked the table cloth decorated with numerous stars.

Stars have appeared in my work for many years mostly as symbols of hope and in the case of the 3 Mothers and this new commission as a symbol of the many descendants of Abraham.  "Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them..... So shall your descendants be."(Genesis 15: 5).

But it was while working on this commission that I began to reflect on the interconnectedness of our lives with the world and the universe.  I couldn't help but be philosophical as I sat painting star after star and the connecting lines between them.  It took hours of work but after awhile it became quite a prayerful process.   I remember feeling the same many years ago when I was working on a series of paintings influenced by the artist Victor Vasarely.  My mother thought I was going mad at the time because for months I sat painting grids and squares.  I loved it!

After I had finished the stars on this table cloth I reflected on my work.  The stars appeared to support the five people who sat around the table like they were being held up by the universe.  The five were not masters of the universe but rather instrumental parts of it.  One couldn't exist without the other.  I discussed this observation of mine with a friend thinking he would find it a little way out but contrary to my insecurities he didn't.  Instead he agreed and was able to put what I was thinking in a more scientific way.  As he understood the science, all the carbon atoms in the universe, which are of course essential to all living things, had to have been, and can only be forged in the extreme nuclear combustion present in stars, from the original element, hydrogen. From there carbon molecules, and a whole heap of the other elements were/are dissipated through the universe.  In other words we are all made of star dust!

As a child living on a farm in New Zealand where there was no light pollution the stars at night would fill the sky causing me to marvel at their beauty.  Wanting to be closer I would reach out to touch them.  Today I still remember the feeling I had of wanting to be closer to the stars, to be one of them and perhaps one day this will be realized when at my end I become dust carried off by the wind back into the sky towards the heavens.

"For he knows of what we are made; he remembers that we are but dust. Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field;  when the wind goes over it, it is gone and its place will know it no more." Prayer of Committal. Common Worship.

Prayer Ritual

This short clip was filmed by Susan Patterson.  Susan approached me and asked if she could film me at work in my studio.  I thought it might be interesting to film the prayer ritual which I do at the beginning and end of my day.

I start by taking off my shoes I then light candles and incense sometimes white sage.  The studio smells lovely and the incense also helps to hide the smell of rabbit skin glue when it is at its most pungent.  The wafting smoke is also symbolic of my prayer rising to the heavens.  My prayer table faces south and the only window that gets any sunshine.  I give thanks for the suns warmth especially in winter but I am very fortunate that I also have great central heating!

I continue my ritual by facing south and praying to the Divine, then to the west, the north, the east and then back facing south.  Sometimes as I move around I visualize different things.  While attending a shamanic ceremony in the Amazon in Peru I watched the shaman pray towards the four directions at the beginning of the ceremony.  Afterwards he said it was to open up sacred space and pray for protection.  When he prayed facing south he visualised a snake a symbol of the connectedness of all life. West he visualised a panther, the great protector which consumes any negativity.  North the hummingbird, a gatekeeper to the heavens and a messenger between worlds.  East the eagle or condor who grants great vision and wisdom.  When I finish praying to the four corners of the earth I also given thanks for the earth and the heavens.  I see myself as a tall strong tree with deep roots and long branches reaching for the stars.

I have to confess though that what you see in the video is a tame version of what I usually do!  Perhaps when I feel more confident I will film this.  Normally I have music playing, something with a little rhythm.  My movement is more exaggerated sometimes more dance like and occasionally I sing.  I even incorporate some yoga poses.  I don't feel I can start my work in the studio until I have prayed and practiced my ritual.  I believe it grants me a focus for what my time in the studio is for which is to allow the creative spirit to flow.  It is a discipline that needs structures  and rituals of support.  At the end of my day I again go to my prayer table this time to close down my sacred space praying in reverse direction and giving thanks for a creative day while also asking that I continue the same work out in the world.

For the Love of Birds.

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all"       

Emily Dickinson

I spent part of my childhood on a farm a few miles out from a little town called Taihape in the North Island of New Zealand.  I have a very clear memory of asking my stepfather if there were any Kiwis in the surrounding countryside.   There were none.   Kiwis are forest dwellers and the forest had been cleared a couple of generations before to make way for sheep and cattle.   The trees that dotted the landscape were mostly introduced species like the plum trees in the orchard where I would spend time climbing and hiding or the big Macrocarpa trees behind the dogs kennels where Magpies roosted and sometimes dive bombed.

I loved birds.  One of my first pets was a Australian cockatiel named Joey.    He lived in a cage but was often let out and eventually when we moved back to Taupo released into a large aviary in our garden.  Around this time I also had a pet magpie who as a young bedraggled sick looking bird wandered onto our property.  I nursed him back to health.  He flew around our neighborhood and would return when I whistled.  One day he just disappeared.    I like to think it was the call of the wild.

I started painting birds at an early age.  Seabirds, parrots and owls all appeared in my work and I was fascinated by the very rare New Zealand birds most people hadn’t seen or even heard about.  The Hioho, Piopio, Huia, Takahe, Hihi and others inspired me and saddened me at the same time.  Some having become extinct.  In Maori culture birds have an important role.  Its not surprising they feature so prominently as Aotearoa was originally a land of birds.  There were no land mammals except for bats.  Birds ruled.  This all changed with the arrival of man and rats, stoats and possums.

Gone but nor forgotten.

On the day my father died I went round to my grandmothers.  A few of us gathered to share our feelings and begin to discuss funeral plans.  As we talked a Pīwakawaka ( a small bird with a fan tail)  flew into the room and flitted around us twittering before darting out.  To some including my superstitious grandmother this was a bad omen.  For me I saw it as a beautiful sign, a sign of hope.

Birds feature in my art often as symbols of hope and as representations of dreams of  fluttering wings and haunting birdsong deep from within forgotten forests.    The story of God promising that ravens would bring food to Elijah is a reminder of something we often choose to forget.  We need birds.  They remind us of the beauty of the world and its mysteries.  Their flight is inspirational their song heart moving.    Without them we are lost.  The now extinct Huia is a case in point.  There is a story that says the Huia was the first bird to sing at the rising of the sun and once it had started singing all the other birds would join in with the dawn chorus filling the land with song.    Today the Huias song has been silenced along with much of the song of creation.   The remaining forests in New Zealand are virtually silent.   Thankfully the conservation movement in New Zealand is working hard to protect what is left.

Gone but not forgotten.

 “Elijah and the ravens”Oil pastel on paper1996.   

Dama-wyn

Dama-wyn (Cornish for Grandmother) was a commission for a friend. Mary was his grandmother who lived to over a 100 years of age. This icon was commissioned as a devotional piece in remembrance of her and the positive influence she was in his life.

In this icon we celebrate the sainthood of all believers. The way we live today and throughout our lives will be remembered by those we leave behind when our call comes for our own onward journey. The challenge for us still living and learning in this world is to live a life in the present.  Not one haunted by regrets and guilt of the past or by fear of the future but rather by a life inspired by the important things in this world.  Family, friends, neighbors, the wonder and beauty of the natural world, the diversity of mankind, the sun , the moon and the stars.

Dancing with Death

Dancing with Death is part of my Koru series.  It's title might appear dark and gruesome but it is not intended. Death is a fact of life.  We will all die someday. Life is about death.

I like the The Day of the Dead festival in Mexico as an example of a way to cope with death and loss. Bereaved families will gather around gravestones and will celebrate and have a picnic in memory of their beloveds. Shrines will be set up in family homes and the deceased‚ favourite food will be placed there.

In the U.K where I am a priest people will commemorate the dead on All Souls Day.  Candles will be lit and the names of the departed will be read out. It is a moving service.

Sometimes though I do wonder if we allow enough space and time for grieving?  One never gets over a death of a loved one but rather in time learns to live with their loss. In a busy world people can be expected to be back to normal after a death within a few weeks! Yet grief comes in waves spaced out sometimes over years.  Some days the tide is out and the bereaved feel they can breathe, all is calm. Then the tide comes in and it arrives with huge crashing waves that threaten to overwhelm. People think they are going to drown. Eventually the tide will go out again and the overwhelming feelings of loss will settle down for the time being.  It is here maybe that grieving people need a quiet bay to shelter in and rest and to find a creative way of expressing their loss without having to wait for a formal expression or date on the calender