2023-08-01 about 1 month
Hi - I'm Cora, and I came to Hub Feenix to commit focus to painting and health. I am currently working on botanical and anthropomorphically-themed paintings with a restricted palette in order to examine nuance and depth in a way that focuses on texture, surface, and line. These paintings explore darkness and its particular reflectivity and, indeed, exist because of light, rather than its absence.
When I'm not painting, I'm teaching online language and linguistics-based classes, and a word that keeps coming to me as I delve into being here is 'rehabilitate', as in 'to return home' - in this case, to return home to oneself.
I came back from a month at Hub Feenix with my heart and mind full to the brim with ideas and information. More importantly, I felt a sense of healing and belonging that had been missing. After a year of despair, something about the loving environment at "The Hub" helped me feel safe enough to process and speak about trauma and sadness with no fear. When I arrived back in the US, even though I had to immediately jump into a very packed and hectic teaching schedule, I still found time to paint the final water vaki, which was calling to me from the lake...
Something happened! The goddess paintings suddenly got BIG!!! The final water vaki from last month was twice the size of the ones done in Finland, but Ishtar is nearly two meters tall. These paintings are demanding a lot of research and experimentation, and each one has much to teach me about the spiritual practices of ancient civilizations, just like the discovery of the vaki of Finland.
Something happened! The goddess paintings suddenly got BIG!!! The final water vaki from last month was twice the size of the ones done in Finland, but Ishtar is nearly two meters tall. These paintings are demanding a lot of research and experimentation, and each one has much to teach me about the spiritual practices of ancient civilizations, just like the discovery of the vaki of Finland.
Another 2 meter-tall goddess has had her portrait completed!! I am in love with the process of learning about these deities and then figuring out how to interpret them through my lens and palette. Mayari is especially important to me as she comes from my mother's culture in the Philippines. Even though (and probably because!) my family from the Philippines may not know much about indigenous, pre-colonial practices from the Philippines, I felt compelled to bring her to life. Mayari is the moon goddess, and is known to carry a baston (long bamboo stick weapon), and to have only one eye, due to losing one in a fight with her younger brother! Well, I used to have lots of fights with my brothers, but thankfully no one lost an eye ;)
