Reconnection

Having set the large Brown Bear canvas aside until I can complete it, I had a totem calling in a big way. Although, I had initially avoided it as it was one that I had already painted a study of. As a rule of thumb, I've always looked to new studies to do.

But the Raven/Eagle Shield was calling. I had just completed the last painting in time for my first Solo Show at the Silk Purse Gallery in West Vancouver in 2015; quite literally off the easel to the exhibition wall. After the challenges on the past few years, I've had a growing need to return to that moment in time and reconnect with this totem. I didn't get any time to 'be' with the painting once it was completed; something that is essential for me as an artist. And then the painting sold off that exhibition wall, so it was gone.

So I've decided to return to that time frame to complete that particular journey. But the original painting was 2015. To remain true to my core of responding to the totem and let it inform me, and being adverse to doing an outright copy of a previous painting, the only thing in common for this new canvas will be my gridded 2015 photograph. So I expect this piece to follow its own path and its own variations. After all, there has been 3 years of life experience since.

I have one more original Siksika icon having been commissioned, and as you can see leaning on the left wall, the two Rose Prince icons are still packed and awaiting delivery. But I needed my easels in the meantime. The one snag that that flared up this week, given the low ceiling in my mobile home, is accessing the lower sections and the difficulty it creates for my lower back (my old herniated disc from 2007 from the huge Holy Family Icon for St. Andrew's Cathedral in Victoria BC). So with my old lumbar support, I move forward.

The background information for the 2015 Raven/Eagle Shield can be viewed at this link:
http://www.andreprevost.com/my-journal/journal-series-on-individual-paintings-eagle-raven-shield-totem