This is a video of an installation piece I created for the April 28, 2012 Cascade Aids Project Art Evening and Auction in Portland, OR. A special thanks to Jennifer Porter from Chroma Art Consultancy and Andrea Schwartz-Feit, artist, for their help on the day of the installation

Statement

The spiral is a universal form, winding in a continuous and gradually widening or tightening curve around a fixed center point. I see it as a meditation, a metaphor and a map for my life.

Meditation.

Through recent exploration of Indian Tantric art, I have been painting and drawing spirals and center points. This art is created as a religious, contemplative practice. Most of the images are very simple forms, using basic colors, revealing the energies and essences of life and spirit. The images are used to recall and re-enter a state of meditation throughout the day. My investigation into this art form became the foundation for this installation.

 Metaphor.

I play with the fixed center point of the spiral as a metaphor for my life while events, people and things whorl about me. The center point can also be a place of stillness, a new beginning or a final conclusion. The spiral lines that widen or tighten around this point become a path I travel: contraction or expansion, introspection or emptiness, growth or hibernation.

 Map.

As I prepared this installation, a daily practice emerged: drawing this form on a scroll, a spiral of paper. The spiral became a map of my life. Just as Tantric art is used to recall a state of meditation, I can look at a spiral and remember who or what influenced the nature and quality of the spiral and where I found myself within the form.

The spiral contains the marks of our human experience. Traversing this archetypal symbol, resting within or springing from the center point brings me to myself and to my studio life.