Tag: ancestry

Wild and Scenic 2021

Features & Fanfare, New Works, Reflections

As you know, my theme for this year and what I have been creatively contemplating while I paint, sculpt, or envision a new art piece come alive is ‘Resilience’. Three of my works grounded in this theme were chosen for Nevada County’s famous film festival and exhibition, The Wild and Scenic Film Festival 2021 Virtual Art Exhibition. I am honored that not only was one chosen to be featured, but three! This is a time of true resilience.

Featured Works in Wild and Scenic 2021

Resilience, A Call to Rise
Guardians of Resilience
Bear Carries Stories of Resilience

View The Wild and Scenic Gallery

I'm curious if this theme resonates with you, or even, what your own definition of it is? How does the word resilience call to you? How do you envision it? What comes alive?

Resilience,
A Call to Rise

It is remarkable and indeed wonderful how the reindeer, elk, and deer have survived throughout history. Amazing art found hidden on cave walls in Europe show that these animals lived and thrived so long ago as well as still exist today. This is “Resilience by Nature”. Can we learn from this example and not only protect their continued existence but be able to self-examine how we can rise to the call of resilience now?

Guardians of Resilience

Can we sincerely learn and be willing to seek eco-friendly and earth-awareness means from the intelligent beings and elements that guard the nature surrounding us? We must look to the guardians already existing, humbly listen, learn, and put into practice in order to thrive together.

Bear Carries Stories
of Resilience

Roots…
“Resilience,” said Bear, “That’s a great story!” Throughout time I have collected stories, stories of the people, stories of the land, stories of the heavens. That’s what I do. A long, long time ago when days were considered ancient, I traveled the earth tirelessly collecting these stories…How the waters ran freely, the wind whispered whimsically, and the trees danced magically while the heavens smiled and its light guided. 

Power and the Forgotten Time…
The people had wonderful and imaginative stories! Some were very comical, others taught lessons and some were scary. They new their roots, cultivated and loved them. They cooperated and collaborated building homes into villages, and villages into towns, and some into great cities and civilizations. Soon they forgot their roots; these faded into preoccupation with working more to make many things and have many things. They became separate beings disconnected from their origins and their cooperative acceptable selves. Stories of origins and roots were forgotten. Instead these became beliefs in disease, starvation, destruction and confusion. Such ideas fell over the people who began to live isolated lives. 

Resilience…
The tales grew heavy, and heavier. The weight of them were a burden. Yet, the Bear that I am is wise. I know that the stories were valuable because of what new understandings can be gained. There is only the need to humble the heart, recall our roots, to glory in the origins of people and of all nature… to remember how everyone is connected, always has been and even still are. So, we shook ourselves free from the weights of belief tales and their myths. We saw everything still, gently remembering, being, and resting in a deeper sense of connection. Now we move to resilience, into embracing different stories and fresh ideas, holding to the roots, once sewn with ancient seeds, no longer forgotten, but give life to new directions, as we gain innovative bearings.

Mixing natural earth minerals into paints, I explore the world of the Ancients in my art.  Integrated into my artworks are the mysteries surrounding their art, techniques and early language roots in signs and pictographs.

Great appreciation and gratitude to Alexandra Carelli for permission to use her song for this video. Beautifully written and sung that brings out the importance of praising our ancient and original roots. 

“Roots”© from Livelli, 2020 – written by Alexandra Carelli

Vocals by Alexandra Carelli & Delaney Albright produced by Basel Khoury

Resilience with our Ancient Ancestors

Reflections

Resilience with our Ancient Ancestors from JENNIFER RUGGE on Vimeo.

 Resilience is the ability to recover.  We travel through life seemingly alone, but we are like others, thinking we know the self we are.  Our ancient ancestors experienced this same road. The appearances of difficult times speak loudly to gain our attentions and intentions as throughout history as we continue to uncover its depth, truth and reality.  

So I asked myself, “What do these times tell me about the self I believe to be?  What can I do or change within myself first to find resilience and a future?”  

Beginning with my individual self is the first step to any needed change.  For me it is an awareness of love, a deeper love for my sense of self asking to feel comfort and protection.  To share this with others comes through my art; it influences and directs the internal desire.  I hold this as the basis of resilience for my attentions and intentions and hope that others may find it, see it and connect in some way.  This is where our ability to recover grows.  Tracing the resilience of our ancient ancestors has enabled all of us to be here today, to move forward together.  

This path as an artist has shown me alternative ways to understanding our original roots through my own ancestral DNA trail, the study of Cave Art and artifacts, and the early knowledge of language expressed in signs and pictographs.  Because of my deep interest in historical roots, my digging into the ancient past has led me on an intriguing journey.  It began with the early Italian fresco painters.  The preparations of minerals into paints, writing in the illuminated style, and gold leaf applications that were used to capture the customs, symbols, and stories of the time.  This, then opened my sense of self to another dimension of spiritual perspectives in life as well as the curiosity of our ancestral cave dwellers and sojourners.  Together, these speak through my art along with creating an eco-friendly studio, using natural mineral paints and earth friendly products. 

Voluptuous Venus

New Works

Inspiration comes in different ways. Recently I joined a group of artists, all women, to support our art endeavors and experiences.  From the conversations and my studies of ancient artworks, I found I was drawn to the small stone statues of voluptuous women, well-known as “Venus”. Soon thereafter, visions of this ancient beauty flooded my thoughts…I had to paint her.

I prepared the canvas, mixed my paints and began to work swept up in the ancestral past. Incorporated into the painting are symbols that not only were found in ancient cave etchings, but cross into roots of ancient written languages such as Egyptian, Phoenician, and Hebraic pictographs. Embedded into this painting are the meanings given by scholars today. The ancient relics of Venus are mostly regarded as fertility goddesses. Yet, women had a more valuable standing where, “Earth brings forth life, and Earth nourishes life, and so is the analogous powers of woman…the mother too of our second birth, our birth as spiritual entities.”¹ And this work conveys that…

Voluptuous Venus

Symbols

Woman — nurtures, sustains and maintains tender constant support and protection

Staff — teacher, guide, protection, moving forward (feminine)

Ox — power, strength, leadership (masculine). Together these symbolize authority.  “EL” is the Aleph, the first, and Lamed, the staff.

Position of figure — like the Hebraic “tsade” meaning side.  It is the trail, path or journey the individual takes.

¹Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine by Joseph Campbell