ARTIST STATEMENT:

I search the inside of God's creation; the trees, and look for answers, and find the Earth's contribution to story telling, is the give and take of its life. I find, my contribution to story telling, to be the give and take of my life work. I work with the tree's spirit and spent life, in washes of acrylic paint, and write the life and spirit of my stories and culture in poetry from the images of its growth. It is in this circle of continuation, in this indigenous way that I find meaning.

The way of the wood is deep, not sitting on top, like paint on most support materials, but multi-layered in its growth. It is a fibrous being that take in washes of paint, sinking in at various levels of wood hardness and softness, giving me shapes and images from its grains. And through this give, I take its life in pulp and grains that formed during its creation, and find in its imagery in my subconscious mind, answers from its life and I interpret these into meaning. My meanderings are intuitive, complex and mysterious because I don't really know how I got there, only that answers come in their own time.

My process is similar to that of a burnt field that accepts a wind blown seed, growing life that seemingly meanders aimlessly into a fertile deathbed, but as Mother Earth shows us; complex in her breadth, mysterious in her form, beautiful in her outcome, she purposely creates in her own time from a plan that is intrinsically intuitive.

My intent is that the viewer engage my work on all levels: physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually, that they would take away a bigger vision of themselves, as imagery and meanings unfold from this hybrid give and take of life.

LAURALEE K. HARRIS

LAURALEE K. HARRIS