Guardian

"Guardian" oil on canvas, 28 x 24 in.

Guardian is one of two paintings among many prints in my exhibit at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island, November 3-27.  I was inspired to reinterpret my monotype print "Guardian" in paint when I read these words from one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins.

"It is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories
how the earth holds us painfully against
its breast made of humus and brambles
how we who will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves."

from the poem “Directions” by Billy Collins

"The entities that continue to return," are symbolized in the Nyads, Kodama, and Green Men.  They are mythic reminders if you listen and personifications of a cyclic and green world.   They return as stories to remind us - we are of nature.