PORTALS: INTO THE MYSTIC
Bo Miller’s Night Bird Unknown Hardwood, Oak Barrel Top 19.5x12x4″ $3,500
For Theo Jonsson, it’s mixing color. For Maggie Wilder, it’s the hour of dusk. For William Slater, it was the music of the Penguin Café.
These artists have found a portal into the mystic state, an opening into creative work. The sutras of Patanjali describe the seventh limb of yoga as Dhyana, a transcendent state where the seer and the seen become one.
“I have found that when I spend time mixing color, my thoughts are suspended in the paint. The paint develops a vocabulary which becomes emotional, speaking of the wee hours of the dawn and twilight when colors merge in subtle variety. Beginning with a palette of mixed paint made in this meditative way, the work emerges from these colors. It has a strong sense of what it is and what it wants to be. I let the prints and paintings develop from these color spectrums. The underwater color spectrums hold various species of Whale Calls printed over the banded color.” Theodora Jonsson
William Slater was a bit of a gregarious recluse. He was supremely at home in the swamp or the city. One could find him in his studio, completely absorbed in the dance that was his painting practice, alone, or with a visitor. In the background was music. What I remember most was a musical ensemble called “The Penguin Café.” Quirky, joyful, almost silly, it was a music that shook us loose of everything but sheer joy. William played this bootleg tape over and over. It was, perhaps, a reliable vehicle to set him about in the world of carefree painting.*
“When dusk arrives I am called to attention. The diurnal world is giving way to nocturnal life and for a brief while both world’s are suspended in silence. If I sit quietly in this stillness a small shy creature comes out from behind my “Daylight Thinking”. She is very impressionable and is imprinted with all manner of sensory frequencies. Images emerge later, sometimes years later, in my studio life when I connect to some deep longing for the simple joy of just being.” Maggie Wilder
Robert Sund was a poet and a painter who spoke of his “warm spot in the world” as a portal to a kind of bliss. He was, by all accounts, a domestic genius, a man who could create a home from most anything available. He referred to “Shack Medicine” as an essential to his well-being and his creative life. Weary of the world and its ways, he would return to his river home and find there a prayerful gratitude and give praise to what he found, from old teacups to mouse turds.*
We hope you enjoy these works by the mystic masters, some of whom walk among us still. Thank you for your support. For information on ways to purchase this art, please contact Maggie Wilder at 360 708 4787, or email gallerycygnus@gmail.com.
*Recollections of Maggie Wilder.