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Cate Clark
When HGTV visited to shoot for an episode of Extreme Homes, I made use of the spotlight upon our hand-built Earthship home to communicate a philosophy. “Insulating where necessary, we also seek to integrate with the supportive natural phenomena of environment.” The Independent Record of Helena, Montana wrote, …the entire interior is absent the right angles and parallel walls that make up most our homes… quoting me to say that “The main theme for the house was ‘alternative™.” Living ‘alternative™ in Montana pushes the limits on comfort and offers a range of experience with ‘extreme™.
Symbolically, dense, heavy mixed media can hold something so gossamer and ethereal as a moment of movement, as if rippling water or a ruffle of feathers could be lifted from aggregate clay. Extremes are healed through the inclusion of apparent opposites, in honor and respect for the inseparability of shadow and light.
Former value judgments that drew rigid lines between function and beauty had to soften before I could experience flowers and garden vegetables with equal appreciation. Strict ideas on practicality held the sublime concept of art for arts™ sake dormant, until middle age would arrive with enough silver hair and mature confidence to begin to receive the Muse. Gracefully, the Muse has arrived. She is the Attitude of Gratitude, a hunger for Experience and the gift of inspired Imagination.
Back home in New Mexico, I love to hear the storytellers speak of awakening consciousness and human potential. Mythology unfolds through art to connect like-minds. We recognize ourselves and one another as potent individuals within the inclusive creative collective. My work intends to invite dialogue with specific archetypes, the healers, teachers, and oracles of creative options and rites of passage.
The Arcana Series
Our individual and collective human experience presents endless variations of the twenty-two major archetypes of the ancient wisdom path of the Tarot. The omission of these Major Arcana, along with the Knight of each of the four suits of the Minor Arcana, speaks to me of a curious hole inside our standard deck of cards, our metaphoric collective consciousness. We have a clich© about “playing with a full deck” yet our 52-card standard is short by 26. While modern decks add a Joker or two, they lack all four cards of Security and each of the twenty-two cards representing expanded consciousness and Rites of Passage into Psychological Maturity.
As differentiated aspects within the individual are made conscious and added back into the collective deck of options, we begin to heal our whole selves. We learn to appreciate freewill and assume the power and responsibility for the roles we animate in our plays of choice.
Our individual and collective human experience presents endless variations of the twenty-two major archetypes of the ancient wisdom path of the Tarot. The omission of these Major Arcana, along with the Knight of each of the four suits of the Minor Arcana, speaks to me of a curious hole inside our standard deck of cards, our metaphoric collective consciousness. We have a clich© about “playing with a full deck” yet our 52-card standard is short by 26. While modern decks add a Joker or two, they lack all four cards of Security and each of the twenty-two cards representing expanded consciousness and Rites of Passage into Psychological Maturity.
As differentiated aspects within the individual are made conscious and added back into the collective deck of options, we begin to heal our whole selves. We learn to appreciate freewill and assume the power and responsibility for the roles we animate in our plays of choice.
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