Hands of Life II

I decided to place a birch tree on this piece.  I am reading a children's book by Native American author, Louise Erdrich.  The Birchbark House is a story of a young Native American girl on Madeline Island growing up in the late 1800's.  Additionally, I just finished teaching the field trips for Maple Syrup at the MN Landscape Arboretum.  During the field trips, we teach the kids about the old Native American ways of collecting the sap.  They used birchbark to create baskets, mukuks for storing the maple sugar, spiles, etc.  Since birchbark doesn't rot, it was an extremely useful "gift".  So the combination of these events, along with our beautiful trip to the North Shore in January, made me decide to use the birch tree.  This is a rough layout of the birch.  Additional branches will be added.  I'm not sure if I'll add leaves or not - stay tuned.  Finally, I am debating on changing the name of this piece to "The Gift".  We shall see what this piece decides.

Hands of Life

I thought this was a wonderful piece to start this blog.  It is in the beginning phase, but it is personal.  Two years ago, I was involved with Art in Bloom at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  The piece we interpreted that year was a Plains Indian blanket with 4 red hands on it, silk ribbons, beads...   I thought it was beautiful, so I thought about somehow doing a similar piece.  I purchased a piece of black wool, shrunk it down, and then waited.  I waited for 2 years while trying to decide what to do.  In February it came to me.  I wanted the hands of Mark, myself, and Jack.  I want him to know of the hands that loved him, even when we are no longer here.  So on 2.15.2015, the day after Valentine's Day, we laid our hands down & traced them into the black wool.  Mark's represent the water, mine the earth I love to garden, and Jack's task hands the combination of water and earth.  Check out the Friendship Blanket that is the inspiration (photo is courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art).