LIKA |
 |
 |
| ARTISTS STATEMENT |
I love the heart of everything. I am learning to re-discover the reality of myself, learning to be more like I was when I was new and had not yet forgotten the importance of my joy, the importance of my uniqueness. We are, each, a gift back to the world, to all we touch, when we can do it without holding barriers to receiving or giving, when we can do each thing with love, as children do, as the heart of everything does. Warm rain, smooth rocks, soil. Paint on canvas, paper or skin. Skin. Living the day as if it were the last. Being with people as if it won't last...as nothing does. Birds in the morning reminding me how happy, how enthusiastic we can feel about being alive, about Being! Dancing inside the music. Being moved, touched, changed by a mountain, a person, a story. Being danced by the world, all its beauty reflecting Cosmic Nature. Resilience, diversity, plants, loves. Seeing people laugh who haven't in a long while. Walking at night. The dark. Stars. Cooperation. Coming up for air, drying in the sun. The sun. I have learned the weird truth that every one of us can look beautiful one moment and homely the very next instant. Why is this? Does it have to do with how much light our thoughts allow in or out? How much our feelings block love from coming or going from us? Does our face betray our intent at a given moment? A face "lit up with excitement" or "darkened by disappointment"...and so, for me, photography is much less static than I thought, when it is capturing this flux and fickle subject we call a body, a "form", a being. I feel it is time now, to unearth and share those things which have been corrupted and then pushed underground. It's time to reclaim the wholesomeness of our nature. When we are free from mind pollution, we can more fully experience who we are. When we are free of shame and fear, we have the clarity to express more accurately how complex, how rich and how beautiful we are. All of us. It's like I had forgotten to touch the ground for so long that I came to think of it as unclean, contaminated, being full of undesirable things like worms, work and dirt...but I felt compelled to harvest some potatoes. I would go into the garden, smelling all the moisture and life hanging in the air, I would feel the warm spongy softness of the soil under my feet. I would take a shovel and push the blade in, then feeling the weight of something there, turn the spade over. I would be surprised how somehow clean the dark earth could seem, how full of life but not yucky or scary, how thriving, how pleasant the odour! I would see strong earthworms fall out of bed amongst the crumbling chocolate cake of the soil and the fat gleaming globes of food! A cluster of potatoes there on the ground! I would feel a thrill at their perfection, at the miracle of them growing down there in the dark. In the dark of all places! I would think how they began like tiny round pearls dreaming themselves bigger in their delight. How they fattened, sweetening on the perfect nurturance of their beds all through the nights and days of summer. How happy they would seem to me, and clean! I would pick one up and with my bare hands, rub the soil from its tender skin. I would see the pure bright flesh! Gleaming, gorgeous! Its semi-transparent body catching light, as if to glow. I would want to take a big bite, even get some grit in my teeth, juicy, raw, crisp, tasting of enzymes, minerals, Earth! La pomme de Terre! Directly from the fruitful darkness!!! We've been given a distorted way of viewing our bodies and our sexual natures. Words like indecent, vulgar, sinful and immoral have caused a perversion in how we understand nature all together. Casting our sexuality into the dark realm and into secrecy has bred shame, degradation and isolation. I feel that this is one way people can help each other de-program and come back to purity, come back and find what most of us are looking for: that which is natural, real and gratifying. As a woman and a human, I want to do what I can to exemplify a re-learning of self love, self respect and dignity. This is the basis for respecting and loving all others, all things. It is the foundation for respecting all of Mother Nature. We are, each, climbing out of the dark and out of isolation. I have hopes that, among other things, this can help to un-condition those with pornography addictions who are seeking to re direct their thought triggers and chemistry so they can be TURNED ON by the real women they love. I think this, in its compelling, playful and creative way, adds to the greater movement to shine a light into the last of the dark ages!
"Alien Skin" - My mom always told me to choose carefully what you dress up as...that our imagination becomes us. This Halloween I played it safe and went as myself. An alien. Not that I mind. I like aliens. For one thing, I'm still getting used to being here, in this body, this world, this existence. It's so interesting, so strange, always changing. Just when I think I understand myself, there is more "alien" left to explore. I am just visiting here, that explains a lot. I live inside this freakishly unique body; not resembling the mass assembly of female forms in marketing. I have these traits which are markedly unsuccessful in this planet's main stream culture; of not being goal-oriented, driven, aggressive or having more than one face. I am filled with feelings and realms more often associated with the female Earthlings but which are not greatly respected or rewarded as far as the current hierarchical value system goes. I go where I feel led, follow what feels good to my heart. I surrender. I empathize, and walk in another's shoes when I need to understand them. Being loving, affectionate and gentle. I've spent most of this life wondering if I'd ever learn how to be happy and feeling like I couldn't get comfortable, like I wasn’t "in my own skin". As if my real self was a cosy snow suit in front of me but I just couldn't get "IN"! But something about my travels and being here in Oz has woken me up! Now my skin is crawling with sensations. Some of them give me intense discomfort. I am so itchy with bug bites and stings. Every fresh breeze raises goose bumps creating an awful pricking. Clothes drive me crazy. It's like I've just come home and it's so intense! I want to be here in my skin, growing roots into myself! Maybe one day someone will dig me and a whole pile of perfect fat potatoes will spill out at their feet! I have just arrived here so everything is new to me; animal sounds, plants, trees and rocks. This land has woken up my senses, my skin. I'm taking in so much newness. The smells, the undulation of the sea, the colours so vibrant and pure! I feel it all in my skin! My skin so awake! Wind, water, sunshine, the tears of the rainforest Gods. I am overstimulated, I am seething with it. I can't stop moving. There is this rapture, this ecstasy!
|
|
