Acts of Devotion

​Many claim to have found God in the mountains. I don’t know what God is, but I admit to having sought her there too. Whatever my search, I have found that the pursuit of scientific inquiry — its own, necessarily limited kind of truth-seeking — can be as much an act of devotion as it is scholarly meditation. For to pay attention to the world, to seek its stories, to run your fingers along some crack of rock or furrow of tree bark, to admire a raptor in flight, to look, closely, at the construction of a previously unencountered wildflower — to wonder and to seek answers to how these things might have come to be in the world — are themselves acts of devotion, ways of knowing, ways of longing for communion. - RICHARD J. NEVLE

"Acts of Devotion" oil on paper,  18 x 14.  (click on the image to purchase)

Acts of Devotion

I see you there, creative human.

Yes, YOU!

I see you wondering and seeking.  I see you finding new ways of seeing, being, thinking and knowing.  These ​acts of devotion are sacred, somehow.  A living meditation.  A prayer spoken with hands, eyes, ears and feet.  A daily pilgrimage to the holy place.

This space here, this tiny (teeny tiny hardly a spec on the internet) blog is where I seek your stories and share my own.  A place to pause for brief moments and allow words and art to infuse us with their magic.  A place where the complexities, sorrows and joys of life might be illuminated - just for a second.  And most of all, a place to enjoy the connectedness of art-hearted humans and their own sacredness.

In case I don't say it enough (or have not mentioned it recently), I am extraordinarily grateful to each and every one of you who visits here, who reads, who may share a story or a thought, who reaches out to me privately to share how something has touched you.  It never fails to surprise and delight me that this space exists at all, let alone attracts stellar sparkle-humans to participate in it.  Whoa.  Wowowowowowow.  Thank you.

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A little something that makes me smile - the podcast genius of Thea Fiore-Bloom (https://the-charmed-studio.simplecast.com/).    I've been listening to these podcasts in the studio while painting and planning.  And let me say this:  at the end of each one, I've both learned something helpful AND feel like I've been seen and hugged.  How does she DO that?  Check it out! 

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​​About the art:  this one, inspired by some AI prompts (which were, in themselves, a response to a hike photo I took) was painted alla prima (wet into wet) over many days.  Building the layers of darks and lights, allowing them to dry and then adding a layer of walnut oil to work on top of them in glazes.  The goal here was loose, loose, LOOSE!  Etheral, foggy, soft lines, suggestions.  And now I am totally hooked on wet into wet painting.  Yum.