Creating Connections

The backside of a large Sycamore slab exposing a power source of Light. I love how the light “highway” terminates within translucent layers of resin. Wood-Resin-Steel & Light. 7″ x 26″ x 2″

“The studio is a place to create and time to discover things about myself. A sanctuary, a place of divine kismet.”

Larry Ortega

An abundant year of rain transforms the desert and exposes the abundance. The heat and scent of the desert glides through the wind. Days are longer-Nights are shorter. Spending more time in the outdoor studio and garden area. The back area of the studio provides the best view of Cinnabar Canyon. The jagged hills offer a stark contrast against the morning sky. The moonlight gently wraps its light over the Ocotillon Hills, as it elegantly illuminates the desert floor.

Sacred Vessels

My inspiration for this series title “Sacred Vessels” come from my thoughts about healing. I look at materials I used in creating this series, it is about the wood that I choose, wood that had a previous use and spent time in the desert weathering the elements over many seasons. It has marinated in the DNA of the desert and recorded the desert experience both day and night. 

Spiritually speaking, I have explored the nature of healing and the influence of light to the process. God is described as Light in many of the major religions. Light plays an important role in my work. Most of my pieces are infused with translucent phosphorescence layers. These layers emit a light, a glow in dark and the darker the setting the stronger the light.

I remember an evening where my mind and soul wandered into a thick darkness, a wilderness place that I came across looking for answers to prayer and meditation on healing I was seeking. In the heavy darkness, one of my pieces provided enough light to refuel faith and hope.

Taos is spiritually magical and has special places of healing and mission Chimayo being one of those healing places.  I embed soil I have collected from Mission Chimayo within all my artwork. 

I like to believe that my pieces help contemplate spirituality. That although God is invisible his manifestation can be perceived by the power of Light, the emotion of love.  and His healing nature.

Finally, music influence my work and remembered the message from the group Jars of Clay.

2 Cor 4:7

If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives.

A message is embedded in our ordinary lives….we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

I am reminded as an artist that I have Light to share.

A Journey to Protection

A sunset framed against the desert horizon, a sign that special moments are about to begin: it’s a brief interlude before the light of the day becomes the light of the night.

Moments like this are sacred, I want to believe its time like this that connects me with the spiritual realm, allowing me time to explore and commune with something greater than the dimensions I exist.  “I want these moments to last longer,” I say. Much harder to explain…easier to experience.

There are times in the studio where I experience a spiritual stillness and humility. Love those desert nights.

When I let go, I guide my thoughts into prayers. ..and somehow the prayers become a spoken layer in my work like an image of an invisible God. My night encounters have become sacred rituals, connecting God and my work.

Interesting where thoughts arise as I imagine that I am creating healing pieces focusing on the themes of the restoration of health and harmony. The curative properties of Light are expressed deeper in darker settings where I imagine the prayer layers are visible as light energy. I imagine the light energy collected and stored in a sacred vessel during the day and dispensed into the night and the darker the setting: this light protects the night and connects to God.

“Within the process of creating my work, there is a time that the work  brings me to “places” that fill me with the spaciousness of the universe while my artificial boundaries are disolved. It feels like freedom, and Exodus from life tethered in four dimensions”

Larry Ortega

Seeking the Sacred

Our personal journeys take us to many places. At times we find ourselves along paths that are unmarked and without light to guide us. We are forced to confront fears that only darkness can produce. But we are driven to explore, it is part of our DNA as humans whether it is reaching to the stars or the depths of the ocean or… the boundaries of our imagination. We begin the journey as children: bringing natural curiosity as artists, scientist, and philosophers.
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A new series of work titled “Beneath the Darkness” reveals imaginary desert and ocean realms. Places and moments of time where light penetrates the darkness providing hope, security, and inspiration. A concealed LED light illuminates the cast resin layers in the cross-like shape and radiates a light within the steel and plexiglass base.

“Seeking the Sacred”

I had a sense of creating something sacred, perhaps a holy vessel, something that can produce a sense of peace and maybe miraculous healing. My own faith says that is possible. Some say that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God. I hope the piece becomes that beacon providing the light into a voyage to a sacred harbor.
Two in a series: Resin-Steel & Light       19″x 11″x4″ See at the Ice House
First Friday April 7th 2017.

www.stor-ybox.com

“Desert Passage”

My latest pieces explore the contrast of elements; where sky and earth meet
and where light penetrates the darkness. Translucence layers accentuate the
glimmering hues of color that shift in the light. Layers of translucent resins
create dream like landscapes and mirages. Mirages are deceptive and the small
nature of these pieces can deceive the viewer looking at the objects. I like to
imagine vast vistas of the sky and layers of clouds captured in a moment of time.

“Desert Passages”

Inspiration for this new work comes from the desert and the
sea and where the sky meets earth and where light is
captured in a space of “luminous colored layers”. It
also comes from deeper inside-from the DNA of the
desert and sea and from the inner being of who I am.
“Am I a mirage”…Is a question that comes to mind.

“Desert Seasons”

Summer is passing in the desert and the light is shifting
higher in the sky…we transition to fall-then to winter-back to spring and then to summer. The seasons of the desert have one thing in common…Light.

“Mirage”

Cubes and Terraforms

As the seasons change, I am transitioning into the hot summer days and nights. My spring work included some of my largest pieces including “Lost Memories” a 7′ casting into the live edge of a Sycamore slab.

 

 

Late spring and going into the summer has me working on a series of cast resin cubes. I have describe some of my pieces as “terraforms” …worlds within worlds and “other worldly”. I see vast desert and ocean wilderness areas that have been part of my entire life. Dry clouds over a horizon, light dancing off the morning water and a millions stars illuminating the night sky.

The desert has played a pivotal role throughout history including the flight of a group of immigrants redeemed from slavery and promised a” land” of milk and honey. A visible sign of an invisible God is seen in the distance.The column penetrates layers of clouds lighting the sky for all to see and never leaving them-strengthening the promise made long ago. Exodus 13:20-22

Set on lighted platforms or as a stand alone piece in a garden window and sills. The cubes absorb light energy and exchange it as luminescence, eerie illumination produced.  StoryBox-creations as An Obliq Artist 

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“Lost Memories”…Resurrection

Termite infested and weather worn; a crooked wooden slab… perfect for reclaiming and restoring lost memories. Inner hostilities confronted the lost memories at every turn and I realize how life shapes these thoughts. I’m aware of these forces fighting within me. There are  jagged and sharp pitted edges shaped by nature and the exposed elements, a lifeless but beautiful fragment of a once prosperous life; a majestic Sycamore tree once living the wilderness experience to its fullest.

 

 

The  process of creating my art becomes a”fetish” experience, a repetition of shaping, smoothing and sanding translucent layers of resin layers cast into the decayed live edge of wood. It is like providing life in the dead arteries of the tree. I seem to work very hard doing this. It is hard work to regenerate this seven foot piece…but I must, its that inner conflict and hostility and good must prevail.

Light beckons the viewer to experience light, its an “eerie” glow that lasts well into the night. The light beckons the viewer to touch the smooth and now alive and transformed piece of wood. Light brings life to art and to life itself.

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix