“…Colour is a power which directly influences the soul. Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which plays, touching one key to another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” -Wassily Kandisnsky

I spent most of my childhood in the woods behind our house. I could climb trees faster than my older brothers and had a favorite reading and napping tree where I would sit, nestled on a branch. I knew the skin of that tree, that branch, like my own. Was comforted by the smell of the sun soaking into it. I felt closer to that tree than any person I knew. It was my safe place.

In the summer I would run all day in those woods, free from the confines of school and walls. I would eat wild raspberries and blackberries and savor the tart sweetness of wild sumac.

The fall found me lying on top of the enormous leaf piles the city dumped out there. I learned the difference between the smell of fresh leaves and old leaves, wet and dry, cold and sun soaked.

Winter found me tracking the footprints of rabbits, crawling through thicket, running across open spaces, searching for the dark warm places the wild things go to withdraw and rest. I would hollow out spots in snowbanks, nestle in and sleep. Feasted on snow banquets and savored the secrets that were whispered as an icicle melted in my mouth.

In the spring I loved walking along the crick listening to the water stories it told. Tales of freezes, trickles, and thaws as it scrambled across and around rocks and sticks on its way to its next adventure after awaking in its bed.

I started the lifelong habit of tasting stones to get to know them better. Knew they tasted different if they were cold or sun soaked, dry or crick found.

Although I did not know the word, petrichor, until an adult, I knew its essence from an early age. That smell that would erupt and name everything the rain touched as it fell; loam, shale, granite, tree, grass, leaves, deadfall, stones.

These works come from that space of knowing from deep within that seasons have important work in the earth and in ourselves. The importance of polarity. That you can’t experience light without having lived through darkness. That need to cocoon, close oneself off from the noise and influence of everything around you to metamorph, and to emerge changed and more beautiful for having surrendered to it.

In my paintings I start from blackness. In this way, I can reach deep inside that internal space to pull what is trying to emerge out. Allow it to crack open the black space and emerge in brilliant light. The process of transfiguration.

In my sculptures I start from that space that provides the darkness, the shelter. The space that allows the transformation, the metamorphosis, the shedding, so that new growth and change can happen. Exploring the process of transmutation.

These works come from that space of knowing the woods intimately. Both the external forests and the ones that grow within me where my shadows reside. The knowing that silence is not always quiet. The space of reflection. The space of wonder and transformation.

I am often asked, “Where do these works come from?” They come from here….

“There is a space

a hollow

where one can get caught

trapped.

A space of contemplation

that although silent,

is nothing close to quiet.

The cacophony of voices

outdated and false

perpetuating misbeliefs

bolstering notions

of lack

unworthiness.

I sit among these voices

witness their false declarations pull at me like the tides

dragging me out and under

throwing me back to land

watching

waiting

to see

if I will crawl

up to solid and dry ground

or sit on the shifting sands

to be pulled out and under again.

There’s a koan imparting wisdom-

to survive the plunge over the waterfall

to the jagged rocks below

one must be the water.

So, I sit.

I sit,

becoming the ocean,

the tides,

a wave,

a drop.

I watch beliefs

tug

pull at me.

I finally see them,

an external force

no longer originating within.

These works come from that hollow space.

They come from within the hours of this inner dialogue.

They come from edge of the beach and from beneath the waves.

They come from becoming the drop.” -eweber