GOCA- Gallery of Contemporary Art-Colorado Spring, Colorado
Libre Group show Radical: 50 Years of Libre
Grief turns Order into Chaos. Grief trims the limbs and the flower buds to make the roots grow. This piece is a long time coming. In reflecting about Libre, the place where I was born and raised, the parts that rise are pieces of my childhood. My childhood and my life have been framed by the loss of my mother; who committed suicide when I was 18 months old. Solace and sanctuary were something that I learned very early on as a place to hold peace through drawing, making, stone carving and writing, gifts and skills my father gave me. He taught me the place between my imagination, my mind, and my hands was mine alone and I could radically change the world with it. He did not teach me limits; instead he taught me that I was capable of anything and as a dreamer all things were possible.
I also found deep sanctuary in Nature. In the creek bed behind the house I was born in that my father built, I began the practice of creating magic with hands, my heart and my imagination, translating it into built form on the landscape. In the mossy hillsides I built fairy houses and villages that extended from the ice cold creek water you could still drink with the cup of your hands, up the steep hillsides to the bat cave and the sandstone rocks that we carved marble trails in to race with the other kids of Libre. Under the arms of the pinion tree boughs that reached down to touch the earth; I built rooms, and forts. In the deep beds of the ponderosa forests I built nests of pine needles, flowers and skunk cabbage to lie in to listen to the symphony of wind through the tops of the ponderosa trees. In the meadows I spent hours tying together wreaths and gowns of flowers. I found sanctuary in the music my father played for me and the music of my community, music and laughter and story were and are the seams that held the fabric of the Libre community together; from Libre birthday parties to births and funerals. My father liked to make elaborate costumes for me, and they always made me feel precious and strong. My coat of many colors was my armor in the world.
My Grandparents letters they sent to Gardner every week with a snack and lunch, and the time I spent with them, which was considerable; surrounded me and made me feel precious. I had the honor of returning the favor of preciousness and love that I got from my grandmother throughout my lifetime this last year, where everything came full circle and I carried my grandmother gracefully, with dignity and love through hospice through her death to her grave, where standing on my mother’s grave, with her casket visible 6 feet under, My husband Scott Johnson and I buried my grandmother.
As a child of the 70’s, born at a time when our generation was not precious, we did not have car seats, or even seat belts, our parents raised us free range, often leaving us in the car to sleep as they danced at the red rocks, we spent most of our time outside, unwatched and my place was the land of Libre. My place was the freedom of making and the knowledge that my community taught me that through our hearts and our minds and our hands we can radically change the world.
