Deborah Howard-Page
B.F.A., 1993, San Francisco Art Institute
I find myself researching and contemplating the roles that nature played in ancient mythologies, and how we yearn for connections to nature in our own lives. Later on, my creative interpretations will gradually, or suddenly, evolve.
My encaustic mixed media is made with pigmented beeswax, oil paint, colored pencils (occassional found objects, such as bones, leaves, insect wings), and/or pastels, usually on birch panels. Although I often make a sketch or study--particularly for figurative and portrait work--it all comes into being through process. Often an element of chance leads me in a direction different than what I had originally intended. This is both terrifying and exciting.
I discovered the nature muse by reading The White Goddess, by Robert Graves. (When I was twenty, I had given it to my father, John Howard--a Hollywood actor who later became a Waldorf high school English/drama teacher. Our family would gather, filled with anticipation, to watch every single episode of the British production of Graves' "I, Claudius," when it first aired on public television in Los Angeles. I had had little interest in reading The White Goddess at the time I gave it to him, but when he died n 1995, I pulled it off his bookshelf, suddenly curious: He had bookmarked many pages with paper-clips--as many as fifty! As I began to explore these pages, I got hooked; next thing I knew, I was spellbound.*)
The Sacred Grove series, using photographs I took while in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England, of certain trees and Celtic ruins, like the Celtic Knots, is on hold for now. All are centered upon the symbolism of ancient Celtic tree-worship, invoking the spirit of Taliesin, the Sacred Grove, or Goddess worship. For example, Urania, Brizo of Delos, got its title from The White Goddess.
Due to current concerns about the loss of honey bees and other species, I am taking a break from the Celtic studies, so that I can paint the "Garden Variety" series of creatures we find visiting our gardens. I incorporate wallpaper, or origami paper, while painting ghostly images of tree branches, thickets, holes, or bird houses, which hint at the loss of abode or habitat.
If you'd like to commission me to paint your photographic images of such creatures, please contact me!
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*With all due respect, I am not involved in nature-magick, aka "Wicca." Attraction to my Celtic ancestry began for me at age ten, when I first switched on FM radio, surfing stations until I was captured by the voice of Tommy Makem singing live with the Clancy Brothers, playing The Wind That Shakes The Barley and The Connemara Lullaby (www.rhapsody.com). See S Page's music comments on statement page.
Robert McNamara writes, "Suantrai is the Gaelic word for "Lullaby". I first came across this beautiful melody in a recording by the Irish a capella group, "Anuna", who incidentally get their name from the Gaelic "An Uaithne", which is the collective name of the three ancient types of Irish music: Suantrai (lullaby), Geantrai (happy song), and Goltrai (lament)."
