Finding the roots of my artistic voice in the Guadalupe Mountains.
Rushing into my garage on Wednesday I saw this broken branch laying on top of the trash can. My husband had picked it up earlier that morning on our patio and was disposing of it. Feeling like I was 6 years old and he had thrown away my favorite doll I grabbed that broken branch, and set it aside where it would be safe and jumped into my car to go to my studio.
I thought about that 36" long broken branch and the feelings it aroused in me when it caught my eye as it sat - goosebumps, heart skipping a beat, and protective. These were weird reactions to a broken branch. Thursday still perplexed by why I was so moved by it, I finally sat it on the pedestal in my garage work space and stepped away.
It was so obvious - it is not a broken limb, it is an abstraction of the Guadalupe Mountains. This broken and discarded limb to my eye oddly reflects the lines and shapes of the vast landscape I absorbed in my youth. The landscape that 50+ years later still influences my artistic palate. The landscape whose lines are so see deeply rooted in my subconscious that I am drawn to even when I do not recognize them.
The Guadalupe Mountains - view from the side of our old house in Dell City, Texas
This is the view from my bedroom window until I as 7 years.
in color - I took this December 2016. I had not been back since I was about 10 years old. Honestly I did not even remember these majestic mountains. .
"My Guadalupes" My next bronze.