40 x 30 x 1.5
Encaustic, pigment stick, & gold leaf

Sometimes the simplest designs are actually the most complex. This one is layered in meaning and literally, lots and lots of wax. At least 9 layers. Stay tuned for the making of reel. ⚡️

As far as inspiration, I got excited a few months ago because I had a dream about flying which was a reoccurring dream when I was young. (Evidently flying dreams are super common for kids, not so much for adults.) It made me jump into the book "Man and His Symbols" by Carl Jung, who believed that symbols in dreams are the language of the unconscious mind. He wrote, “Dreams are the direct expressions of unconscious psychic activity” and that “it is in dreams that we first encounter the symbol without knowing it as such."

I have known I would create this artwork for months and have been obsessed with the feather as a symbol (flight, sleep, nature, protection, creation, etc.) but it took on a new life last week as I do what we do in despair and turned to the arts for a dose of humanity. I found this gorgeous poem waiting for me and embedded the text into the early layers and title of the artwork:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

-Emily Dickinson