Bear with me as i crawl towards a moment or two of great interconnectedness...
A dear friend recently shared with me that she had another friend struggling with an issue. Her friend couldn't arrive at a solution to her problem. She looked at it from one perspective, then another and eventually...she saw what needed to happen in order to move forward. She felt as if she'd been "circling" around her challenge. When my friend told me this, it resonated deeply for me, on many levels of my life. And it reminded me of the reading that i've been doing on the Haida Indians of the Pacific Northwest and their devoted, humbling and deep relationship to nature -- especially birds and flight. The raven. The eagle. The transformation into and out of these creatures. Like birds, we humans often circle for that comfortable place to land in search of sustenance, shelter, companionship, the solution to a struggle, a place to dream and so much more.
For me, i realized that i've been circling this art project for months. when 2009 began in January, i had plan. (And for those of you who wish, there are 20+ blog entries before this to enlighten you on my process up to that point. happy reading!) But life events unfolded, our family paths and schedules grew complicated, there was much singing to be done and tick tock, time went by and few nails were driven into wood. And i began to lose focus. Perhaps i was flying too high to see clearly and circling about in confusion of how to keep this process going.
However, events of the past month have guided me to a secure landing place -- a branch that is thick and strong with support and whose protective leaves are unwavering during the blustery winds of doubt. this will make a good nest for me from which to sit and guide this piece back into fruition.
And what were these events of the last month? I'd say that it started with my first trip ever to Canada. In Vancouver, I listened to so much incredible folk music that could, on its own, be a blog but i'll spare readers of this. Upon traveling there with a couple of terrific adventurers, i was in search of a book that i thought would be great to read while en route: "A Story As Sharp As A Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and their World" by Canadian poet Robert Bringhurst." I couldn't find it, but upon traveling there, I grew more and more interested in this book. Once back home, i bought a used copy off of Amazon while my traveling cohort loaned me a book from an exhibit she saw up there a year earlier on two centuries of Haida Art. The companionship offered between these two books is rich. One offers deep text of mythtelling and Haida life and the other offers incredible visuals that compliment and further illuminate the richness of this culture's way of life.
I was particularly drawn to the totems of the Haida communities. How they are raised outside the doors of the great houses that once stood between the forest's edge and sea's tide. How they faced the infinite waters of the sea -- representing the spirits of those who came before as a reminder of their role in the evolution of the Haida community. Canadian artist Bill Reid (d. 1998) explained:
"Above all (uses of the cedar tree),
you can build totem poles,
and the people of the Northwest Coast
built them in profusion:
forests of sculptured columns
between their houses and the sea,
proudly announcing to all
the heraldic past of those who dwelt there...
Each pole contained the essential spirit
of the individual or family
it commemorated,
as well as the spirit
of the artist who made it,
and, by an extension, the living essence of the
whole people.
while the people lived,
the poles lived,
and long after their culture died,
the poles continued to radiate
a terrible vitality
that only decay and destruction could end...
all things must die,
and great art must be a living thing,
or it is not art at all."
Well the readings of the Haida people, their stories and art brought me back to Rwanda's landscape and its people. and, again, my importance to memory was re-solidified, if that's possible. i knocked the dust off of a small piece of cardboard (a 2" x 4" saved covering from one of cooper or eleanor's beach tattoos out of a machine) on our bookshelf. 3 or more years ago, i had made a sketch of 6 stonehenge-like columns titled "Rwanda Triptych". They are spaced as such: 1 column. then space. then 2 columns. then space. then 3 columns. [ [[ [[[
1, 2, and 3 sets of columns representing 3 months. 800,000 lives lost in 3 months. maybe i'll get my scanning skills in order and scan the old sketch and new one so that it can be view alongside this reading.
In the middle of all this new inspiration for one American woman towards the Rwandan people through the vanishing culture of the Haida Indians, i sat with artist Linda Newman (and deep spiritual friend/guide) to talk about how best to express my energy now. She inspired me to acknowledge the fog of disbelief and disorder that i've been in surrounding this art project. I had to look at fear -- fear of success? fear of failure? and we did that together. And i walked away from her visit with the true belief that to move forward with this is really loving myself. And the active loving of self is vital. I just need to keep this alive and i trust that the financial support is out there, the time is available, the documentation of it is possible and the emotional and practical support swimming around me is almost unending.
And I want to thank any of you lovely people who have asked me about this. I've been embarrassed to answer about how little progress has been made on it, but i appreciate the continued interest and inquiries. Such support goes a long way. And now, time to restructure and reorganize and move forward. Which i will do. I decided that i would do at least one thing a day for this piece and that's a good place to start. So, early this morning, I wrote to two artist friends who are steeped in the work of art and memory. I asked if we could make a time to sit down and seriously hash out some of the practical questions that i have regarding 800,000 nails community project. Their advice and experience i know will be quite valuable.
A few hours later, one of them responded. Speaking for the two of them, she said that she'd love nothing better than to sit down with me and dream about a new piece of art for the memory of a people. She said she'd love to do that over a meal, sometime in September perhaps. But for now she's out of town...
"I am in the great Northwest headed for the Queen Charlottes to see the totems in situ and to meet with Haida chiefs with my friends who work on Native rights. It has been a life long dream."
I almost fell off of my rickety desk chair.
