Memoirs 2: Lithographs and Other from the 80's

"Gaia" (1985)

I wanted to finish sharing these "forgotten" Lithogrgaphs from the 80's.  This was the height of New Age.  Extraordinary people like Carolyn Myss Energy Healing, Gloria Orenstein with Ecofeminism, Psychologists such as Stephen Levine and Jack Kornfield bringing Vipassana meditation and Theravada Buddhism into contemporary psychology, Starhawk, M. Macha Nightmare, and their colleagues creating the Pagan religious path for Goddess spirituality and a return to Nature,  Michael Harner and Sandra Ingerman bringing Shamanism into the modern world,  Joseph Campbell inspiring everyone with the Power of Myth, Shirley Maclain and Crystals................ so much, such a glorious international opening of spiritual re-discovery and re-invention.  Yes there were excesses, as always will happen, but I am always annoyed at the mindless censorship and cynicism with which people now scoff at "New Age", not realizing how many important ideas practices and institutions arose from the era of openness and re-discovery 

"Day of Radience" (1985)

I love this piece, which spontaneously gave a photo in my studio of the artist Catherine Nash a "halo".  She is a powerful artist whose work is highly spiritual:  I was not surprised then, nor am I now.

"A House of Doors" (1987)

"A House of Doors IV" (1988)

"The Daemon Lover" (1987)

A HOUSE OF DOORS  was the theme for my MFA show in 1987, and I produced a number of paintings and also a Spoken Word poem (in collaboration with Catherine Nash)  inspired by the amazing works of Laurie Anderson.  I am thinking I will make the next post about that particular show.  

"Skin Shedder" (1986)

By 1985 I had discovered the evolving Pagan community and ritual practice,  and also began to learn about the Goddess.  I was inspired reading Starhawk and The Spiral Dance deeply.  When I began to learn about the many, many manifestations of the Divine Feminine throughout the world, it felt like a vast sustenance and truth was entering me, to fill up the emptiness I had often felt in my lack of religion.  Here was, as Gloria Orenstein , one of the founders of EcoFeminism, wrote in her book THE REFLOWERING OF THE GODDESS the return  of the Great Mother to a world desperately in need of Her.  Here was the need for a new Iconography that I, as an artist, could entirely respond to and devote myself to. 

"The Summer Solstice" (1987_

"The Winter Solstice" (1987)

"Herne" 1988)

 

"Skin Shedder Mandala" (1987)

                           All artwork and text unless otherwise specified is COPYRIGHT Lauren Raine 2024

"A House of Doors"

An onion, that's it.  All those layers

just when you think you can name yourself,

you discover new layers,

you’re forming a new skin,

a new ring.

But there's a core.

And where does that core start?

My MFA show in 1987 was called "A House of Doors", and I made, with the collaboration and generosity of artist and fellow graduate student Catherine Nash MFA,  a spoken word/electronic music  "sound track" to go with the paintings and lithographs that comprised the show. Catherine is an extraordinary artist whose work has always opened doors into other realms.  And  1987 was an exciting time to be alive, an optimistic time  when all kinds of inquiries into spirituality and consciousness were developing in the New Age era.  Catherine and I belonged to a group interested in exploring altered states of consciousness and other spiritual explorations, and from that group also came a show about art and spirituality.  We discussed people like Wassily Kandinsky and his book "Concerning the Spiritual in Art".  We meditated together, and did numerous sessions with Bob Monroe's Past Life Regression tapes - those shared visions were very significant for me, and became the inspiration for my show and performance piece  "A House of Doors" below:

https://soundcloud.com/user-972033003/a-house-of-doors-1987

Sometimes, you open a door, 

any door 

and you have to walk outside

into something tender,

like a touch on a winter night

into a quiet yard

because of a voice that you hear 

or a bell

or a train

pulling away

somewhere

Catherine Nash

"Vespica" by Catherine Nash (www.catherinenash.com)

 I wanted to introduce a long-time friend of mine, and a truly visionary artist, Catherine Nash.  Catherine has achieved international recognition as a paper, and encaustic,  artist, and has taught internationally for many years, gathering friends and fans along the way.  She's currently fundraising for a matching grant that will, if she meets her quota by the deadline, allow her to pursue her project Contemporary Paper and Encaustic, an e-publication surveying international artists who integrate paper and encaustic in innovative and inspiring works. 

 "My focus is to present artworks that push the boundaries of paper and encaustic while simultaneously creating a relevant contribution to the contemporary art world."I think it will be an important book, one that will further artistic community as well as inspiring many students and colleagues."

Here's where you can find out about her project, watch an informal video, and contribute if you feel moved to:

http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/project/contemporary_paper_and_encaustic_international_trends

I've been a fan of Catherine's for many years, ever since we met in graduate school at the University of Arizona.

Catherine has always, I think, been looking up - Among my favorite of her recent works are  "Secret Skies".

"Sky Within" by Catherine Nash

"The sky holds the ultimate touchstone for me, representing the infinite, a spaciousness, the big mystery.  Looking out into space brings levity and perspective to my day....I need a reminder that we are tiny beings on a continent, on a spinning planet, in a solar system, within one galaxy among multitudinous galaxies.  Levity.  May I carry that around with me, please? Secret Skies are a recent series of artist books: paintings of the sky are created within a closable wooden box, game board or the like. I am playing with a physical way of bottling up, translating, of trying to comprehend the unfathomable with a bit of humor."

"Have portable sky, will travel~"

"Navigation by Night"

"On The Beach"

"Spiral Offering" by Catherine Nash MFA

"Blessed are the Peacemakers,
for they shall inherit the Earth."

ON THE BEACH
(Oct. 11th, 2001)

One month
after the world ended.

The little island world we,
the privileged few, could pretend
was safe, forever, and righteous

The fallen towers,
fiery messengers
of unfathomable destruction yet to come.

Tourists walk barefoot
on the familiar beach.
They came here, I imagine,
as I have, not to forget,
but to remember.

To remember driftwood and high tide.
To remember a red dog, and a yellow-haired child
as they enter the water -
their cries of goodly shock
and honest forevers
always new, always cold, and blue.

A white heron,
balanced in perfect equanimity
on one leg.

Wave forms overlay my feet,
transparent hieroglyphs of infinity.
Her way of speaking.
Her manifest, unspoken words.

A brown man
lies beside the mossy cliff, spread-eagled
between sky and sea and land.

Sand sunk, leaf-molten,
blackberry thorn - into the green.
Toes, fingers, flesh
reaching into the green

the green,
redeeming Earth.
He is rooting himself.
He is taking himself back.

I lie down in grateful imitation, a stranger
in companionable human proximity,
sharing this rite of remembering.

I close my eyes, and see her.
A girl, walking on this very beach
Yesterday, and 30 years ago.
I see her sourcing,
sourcing the one who lives here.
A river Goddess
with no name.

She has made a mermaid offering
of sticks and sand and seaweed.

Companions arrive, offer shells,
and then return to Berkeley.
To Vietnam, the Cold War,
the Berlin Wall,
the war, the wall,
the war, the walls.
The war,
and the summer of love.

("the revolution will not be televised")

A generation to end war, raise hell, raise consciousness,
raise Atlantis, and raise the new and Golden Age

("the revolution will not be televised")

How did we get here
from there?

I call you back, girl.
I call you back.
I am at the other end of this life now.

Your sand prayers
ring here still, still ring true.

The Earth
is my witness.

Lauren Raine (2001)