Spirit Lights grows out of my personal experiences with the great mysteries of death and spiritual connection. Most particularly in the year after my mother’s death, but continuing today, the apprearance of moths both remind me of those spirits who are no longer in human bodies, and have directly signified their presence around me. I have had some very spiritual and universe-connecting moments heralded by the sudden appearance of moths in unlikely places. Apart from my own experiences, I like their symbolic meanings as “butterflies of the night,” the translation for “moth” in at least French and Spanish, and further mythological connection to the Ancient Greek goddess Psyche, whose symbol was the butterfly. A prominent image in the wing of one moth is the Northwest Native ceremonial mask of “The King of Ghosts” who wanders the ocean beaches at night. All of my collage paintings seek to weave cultural, linguistic, and metaphoric webs. This painting, like all of mine, has many meanings, but one of the central ones is certainly Death as Transformation. Moths are also infamous for their attraction to light, so strong they will kill themselves against the heat of bulbs and fires to get ever closer. This is in itself a profound reality full of metaphorical threads to unravel through our own lives and deaths.
24" x 24"
2014
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