Paintings of Time and Place

"Ancestors," Oil Painting in Honor of Native Americans of Taos and US

Years ago as a seven year old child rubbing my feet in the black loam of our Ohio vegetable garden, I made a marvelous discovery--a stone tomahawk hidden in the dirt.  It seemed so obvious and yet so mysterious that I picked it up in wonder.  What an exciting find!  As I look back on that discovery, I am still in awe and perhaps have even less understanding than during that time of innocence.  Could it have been an omen of things to come?  Could it in its own small way have pushed me to a path of discovery which would help fashion my adult life?  I have woven Navajo style; I live in a place inhabited by descendants of the Anasazis, and I wonder at the beauty, mystical energy, and intelligence of the Native American culture in which I live.  This painting is a tribute to our ancestors of the Americas, the people who lived and still live in this land.  Thank you.

Ancestors,  Oil on Canvas, 60 X 36," Gallery Wrap, $4500 USD

www.charlotteshroyer.com

Copyright 2012 Charlotte Shroyer

Indian Axe Painting: A Connection to my Soul

 For years this axe sat on my bookshelf waiting for me to notice.  It has only been during the past three weeks that my attention finally got it--wake up and look through the window of your soul at the reminder of your long ago intentions to write a book about lessons of life from the Navajo loom.

This axe is not Navajo, but it is a part of a culture which has valued the earth and all that is a part of it.  So much of who I am has been reflected in the Navajo style weaving that I did for years and still do to a minor extent even today.   The spiritual connection of putting  organic materials into a visual form with order and aesthetics satisfied a yearning deep within for close to 20 years.                   

NOte:  The book Lessons of Life from the Navajo Loom has its beginnings on paper almost three chapters done.  One of the chapters Yarns of the Soul has already appeared as an award winning feature aricle.  Hopefully the rest will follow.

Painting above:  Indian Axe, Oil on Canvas, 4" X 6," $30.00 USD

Indian Axe: The Beginnnings of Life Long Passions

There are those who believe our destinies are mapped out long before we make the trip down the birth canal. We come into the world with contracts, missions, and prescribed paths to follow and fulfill. Signs which serve us as guidance along the path toward attainment of that personal destiny appear often when least expected. . Maybe. Events are not happenstance, but instead serve as reminders of subconscious mysteries, guiders and propellants toward fulfillment of this mystical mission in life. Maybe. You make up your own mind.

Passions spring up, sometimes starting as just a gurgle in the gray matter, sometimes a roaring lava flow hot and moving. Whether they are born as a part of our genetic DNA, whether they appear with exposure to the world and practice of who we are in the world, I may never know. Whatever, in some way they seem to be a part of the destiny trail. My passions toward the Native American and Meso American culture probably began with a little bit of religion, a lot more reading, and one or two concrete objects.

Perhaps a sign of ideas to come, the stone axe stared up at me from the corn field and vegetable garden where I cultivated around the vegetables, pulled weeds, and even plucked off fat green tomato worms engorged from munching. I loved to run barefoot through the dirt just to feel the warm loam squeezing through my toes. Imagine my surprise when I came across this well shaped stone axe half submerged in dirt. Indians had lived here on this very land, not a really surprising finding to me today, but extraordinarily mind boggling to a 10-year-old to find true evidence of their previous existence. 

Indian Stone Axe, Drawing, 2008

Copyright 2008 by Charlotte Shroyer

"Native American Dancer"

Native American Dancer

12" X 9" unframed

Oil on Canvas

$100.00 USD

"Native American Dancer" had its beginning origins in a painting group in which we were given a photo and asked to paint from the photo. I don’t usually paint from photos. I find them too limiting with the end result tighter than the paintings I create from my mind. But with this photo, I felt an emotional connection to the point of almost hearing the pow wow drum beat with which the dancer synchronizes his movement. Three beats and three movements of the feet. The beat is mesmerizing and so much in touch with the rhythms of the earth. Having attended several Native American drummings here in Taos ( in which several people sit in a circle beating a drum in time with the chant and drum beat of the leader), I connected my experiences with what I imagine to be the experiences of this pictured dancer. The beat becomes almost primeval. One becomes almost hypnotized with the resonance of the drums. Drum beats touching the heart and every bone of the body. Mesmerized until the end.  In spite of my fascination with the subject,  it took me two years to come back to this painting and finish it.  I heard the drum beat stronger than ever.

Pueblo Energy

I am sitting here looking out over the beige expanse of New Mexican mesa dotted with green poufs of sage brush.  Nary a person to be seen in the distance.  Thunder rumbles while the mountains spread their energy of power across the terrain.  Taos, New Mexico--the last place in the US that I would have expected to find myself.   But fate makes its own serendipitous moves leading us along a path with a destination that is most in line with whom we are and what we do.  People, events, and places that nudge us and sometimes hit us with a real whop on the head.  Wake up!  Can't you get the message?  I finally got it.  Taos, New Mexico--beauty, energy, and creativity all in one place.  Taos has been one of my destinations, perhaps not the last, but a welcome one along the way.

Pueblo Energy

Monotype

4" X 6"

Worldly Connections

These three figures appeared from a place in my mind that must have seen the world in either imagination or reality. I live in a multicultural area where the dominant cultures are Hispanic and Native American, but in my travels around the world I have met and talked with many from other cultures. I see the dominant figures in the painting as Native American, African, and Tibetan, but their nationalities are immaterial. They are citizens of the world surrounded by other citizens of the world. Whether in contemplation, active conversation or standing on the sidelines, we are all part of humanity.

 

A Mayan Prayer for the Earth

A Mayan Prayer for the Earth6" X 4"Oil on Canvas$30.00 USD

We were a sophisticated civilization, the only of the Native Americans to develop extensive written texts. Our cities were powerful; our architecture dazzling; and our knowledge of our universe far beyond that of many other early civilizations. But we ventured too far and did not heed, until too late, the warnings of Mother Earth. A cycle of devastating droughts affected our water and food supplies; warfare competed for those precious life giving resources; too many people quested for the same available resources. But, perhaps most of all, our leaders, the people whom we trusted to look our for us, the victims of their own greed, did not search for the solutions to the problems.

May the leaders and people of the 21^st century learn from our lessons and create a path to honor, respect, and live with the wonders of the earth and with each other in peace, harmony, and beauty.