Intuitive Ewe







February Ewe 1, 2011. Ink on a 1921 encyclopedia page.
(Click on image to see words and details.)

Recently, I have been working more intuitively with
images, words, and materials to create narratives.
Creating these personal metaphors is a therapeutic
process of soothing my own anxieties, and discovering
how we are all connected to each other, as well as
connected to nature and to the past. Also, I have been
researching the Art Nouveau movement of the early
1900s in art and design history. I am fascinated with
how this time period was such an important transition
into the modern art era, and I see parallels between the
industrialization of the early 1900s and the digitalization
of today.

Drawing on the surface of 1920s encyclopedia pages
with black ink, I am enjoying the process of responding
to the surface texture and words as sheep images and
natural, art-nouveau-inspired motifs overlap.

February Ewe 2, 2011. Ink on a 1921 encyclopedia page.
(Click on image to see words and details.)

Mother's Fingers

.
Mother's Fingers, 2011 Ink on 1921 encyclopedia pages
(click on image to enlarge and see words)

I grew up on a sheep farm in North-Central Minnesota. At age

eleven, I became awe-inspired by nursing half-frozen lambs back

to life, and experienced mothering instincts for the first time.

Experiences with mothering my own two daughters today, the

oldest nearly eleven, may be why sheep images are surfacing in

my work recently.

Vision that was planted in 1989

“The Arvegods” (1979) by Ray Jacobson, represents a pair of early Norwegian pioneers.

I haven't seen these sculptures for over 20 years. When I attended the symposium "The Role of the Artist in Society" at Concordia College in Moorhead this week, it was moving to see the two figures again, especially when "The Sound of Silence" so vividly played in my head as I neared the sculptures. Not sure how to describe it, but there was such a clear link between these forms and the words and tune of that song. "My old friend, I've come to talk with you again... And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains." In 1989, I finished a year at this small private college, before reluctantly transferring. This sculpture met me like an old friend. According to symposium presenter Dr. Dan Flory, film (or any art form), like a friend, can "tell us things about ourselves that we can not see." Maybe I have been denying just how much that year in my life helped to determine my path as an artist, teacher, & person.

More information about the artist and sculpture: http://www.rayjacobson.com/public_spaces.html