INTENTIONAL PROCESS PAINTINGS
For eleven consecutive years I have created a painting based upon a practice known as “Counting the Omer”. The practice has ancient Biblical roots as well as contemporary adaptations. It involves a ritual counting which spans 49 days, seven weeks of seven days: the time of wandering in the dessert after liberation from slavery, until receiving the revelations at Mt. Sinai. It has evolved into an intentional practice, a period of intense introspection and spiritual growth.
For my paintings I have adopted the practice of connecting the “Counting of the Omer” to the seven principles of the Divine in
Creation according to Kabbalah (these are known as the “Sefirot”). Focusing on the attributes of the Sefirot became a daily meditation and intention, resulting in the creation of what became one panel of the
painting for each day. The Omer paintings itself consists of these 49 panels constituting one painting. Each panel is prepared somewhat in advance of the practice.
Each year, when I enter into this personal journey, I experience coming “out of the narrow place of slavery”. It is a journey from self-liberation to opening, and then to receiving. I recognize that though I enslave and liberate myself over and over, I also repetitively journey through different states of consciousness, arriving again and again at the place where I open to receive. I learn compassion for myself, and others, through accepting that it does not matter where the journey takes me, an aspect of being human is to be engaged in actively arriving.
TESHUVAH PAINTINGS
These paintings reflect an intentional creative practice
referred to as “Turning and Returning”.
I begin by committing to the practice and setting aside time to enter into daily intentions. Without overthinking product, I chose as an expressive practice; painting each day for 40 days.
I believe that by entering into an intentional practice one can release the creative, express the unspoken, and move into consciousness on a very deep level.
100 AFFIRMATIONS
This painting was created by focusing on 100 affirmations from the practice created by Roz Clements called rebirthing affirmations. Each day held a different affirmation and one piece of the painting was created.
