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Courage to be Whole
In her debut show, Courage to be Whole, Wendy combines found objects with the female form. These eight sculptures invite observers to get out of their frantic, over thinking heads, and pay more attention to the intelligence of their body and intuition of their soul.
VUCA acronym (Voo-k-a)
Are you familiar with the idea that our times are Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous? Me too.
The VUCA nature of the world we are living in certainly makes life difficult to analyze, respond to, or plan for.
In an interview on the With and For podcast, Dr. Dan Siegel says the amount of information we receive is more than a lifetime of information people received 300 years ago.
Our brains have not evolved at the same pace.
Artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed: says“Having abandoned the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.”
VUCA makes me prone to wander. Sometimes wandering is simply distraction and avoidance. Often, wandering settles my mind, calms my body, and allows my heart to speak.
This piece started this collection.
I was decluttering my studio space, purging incomplete projects and hordes of materials.
Overwhelmed by the process, I wandered. Retrieving a female form from the ‘toss-pile,’ I began wrapping her in twine. The physical act of it was satisfying, and the result, the figure bound in a tangle of twine, became a symbol of the tangle I was working my way out of.
Like so often in life, when I came to the end of the rope, I could only let go.
The VUCA nature of the world we are living in certainly makes life difficult to analyze, respond to, or plan for.
In an interview on the With and For podcast, Dr. Dan Siegel says the amount of information we receive is more than a lifetime of information people received 300 years ago.
Our brains have not evolved at the same pace.
Artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed: says“Having abandoned the flimsy fantasy of certainty, I decided to wander.”
VUCA makes me prone to wander. Sometimes wandering is simply distraction and avoidance. Often, wandering settles my mind, calms my body, and allows my heart to speak.
This piece started this collection.
I was decluttering my studio space, purging incomplete projects and hordes of materials.
Overwhelmed by the process, I wandered. Retrieving a female form from the ‘toss-pile,’ I began wrapping her in twine. The physical act of it was satisfying, and the result, the figure bound in a tangle of twine, became a symbol of the tangle I was working my way out of.
Like so often in life, when I came to the end of the rope, I could only let go.
Intuit
“Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think.” ― Neuroscientist and Author Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
When I left my career, I carved out a little space in the garage where I could play. My husband calls it the Club House.
I began to create with no expectation that anything I made would be good, with no expectation it would be seen by others.
I made messes. I splashed paint, and made papier-mâché goo. I even tried weaving! And I took a few on-line classes.
Through the physical acts of moving about in that space, the working with my hands, the losing myself in a project for a few hours, I retrained my brain. I woke the sleeping creative side. Little by little, Wendy returned.
Neuroscience, neuroplasticity, and neurasthenics validate my personal hypotheses and experience: art & play can help make me whole.
Collage requires trusting your intuition. The collage work covering this piece explores using fragments to respond, rework and repair.
When I left my career, I carved out a little space in the garage where I could play. My husband calls it the Club House.
I began to create with no expectation that anything I made would be good, with no expectation it would be seen by others.
I made messes. I splashed paint, and made papier-mâché goo. I even tried weaving! And I took a few on-line classes.
Through the physical acts of moving about in that space, the working with my hands, the losing myself in a project for a few hours, I retrained my brain. I woke the sleeping creative side. Little by little, Wendy returned.
Neuroscience, neuroplasticity, and neurasthenics validate my personal hypotheses and experience: art & play can help make me whole.
Collage requires trusting your intuition. The collage work covering this piece explores using fragments to respond, rework and repair.
Un-Becoming
"Maybe the journey isn't about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." Paulo Coelho
We don't often consider decay, corrosion, deterioration as attractive or 'becoming.' Rust, like age, is something to fight. The fact is, it is natural for refined metal to return to its original, oxidized state when exposed to the natural elements and in the process un-becoming shiny and polished. Maybe it is natural for me too.
I’m on the journey of un-becoming. This path isn’t always shiny or polished. Returning to my original state, I found peace, contentment, and beauty in all my broken bits and pieces.
We don't often consider decay, corrosion, deterioration as attractive or 'becoming.' Rust, like age, is something to fight. The fact is, it is natural for refined metal to return to its original, oxidized state when exposed to the natural elements and in the process un-becoming shiny and polished. Maybe it is natural for me too.
I’m on the journey of un-becoming. This path isn’t always shiny or polished. Returning to my original state, I found peace, contentment, and beauty in all my broken bits and pieces.
Un-Known
“Don’t allow your mind to tell your heart what to do. The mind gives up easily.”
- Author, Paulo Coelho
“Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find what is near.”
-Author, Paulo Coelho
After my mother passed my sister and I discovered that not everything Mom told us was 100% true. Nothing bedrock or life-altering, just a few funny 'momisms' that no longer hold water.
But there have been more important notions that I've discovered have holes or they are not as neat and tidy around
I discovered: historical inaccuracies, distorted world views, my unconscious biases, and of course lies I've told myself about who I am and who I am not.
As my self-righteous pronouncement, my weak opinions, ill-formed perspectives, and quivering certainty begin to erode, the more light shines through.
- Author, Paulo Coelho
“Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find what is near.”
-Author, Paulo Coelho
After my mother passed my sister and I discovered that not everything Mom told us was 100% true. Nothing bedrock or life-altering, just a few funny 'momisms' that no longer hold water.
But there have been more important notions that I've discovered have holes or they are not as neat and tidy around
I discovered: historical inaccuracies, distorted world views, my unconscious biases, and of course lies I've told myself about who I am and who I am not.
As my self-righteous pronouncement, my weak opinions, ill-formed perspectives, and quivering certainty begin to erode, the more light shines through.
Dormant
“Though the long winter may linger,
The soul lay dormant, not dead,
Wait as a seed and the root-bulb,
Spring has not failed to spring yet. ”
- Wendy Bowman, Courage to be Whole
I struggled with this piece. Partly because I assumed it would be easy.
I would follow the formula of incorporating items from my collections, this time using beloved objects from nature: driftwood from Mexico and California, Birch bark from the North Shore of Minnesota, moss from the Rockies, and a twig or two from my own backyard in the Big Woods.
The formula didn’t work. The piece did not speak. It looked nice, like something you’d find in a gift shop-nice. A trusted friend suggested that the sensual curves of the female form were lost under all the wood.
I took it apart, reworked it, fiddled with it until it was better. Still, there was a disconnect. Or was there?
I came to live in the Big Woods 10 years ago. It has become a key part of my healing and growth. Our little cabin is a place of escape. Here I learned to look forward to the slower pace of winter, the ritual of tending a fire, the peaceful silence a heavy snow brings. I see the silhouettes of naked trees spreading through the air like the Earth’s own arteries.
Nature illustrates the redemptive patterns of life and death, flourishing and decay, activity and rest. I’m also learning to trust my soul's seasonal cycle and live with the lessons each season brings.
The soul lay dormant, not dead,
Wait as a seed and the root-bulb,
Spring has not failed to spring yet. ”
- Wendy Bowman, Courage to be Whole
I struggled with this piece. Partly because I assumed it would be easy.
I would follow the formula of incorporating items from my collections, this time using beloved objects from nature: driftwood from Mexico and California, Birch bark from the North Shore of Minnesota, moss from the Rockies, and a twig or two from my own backyard in the Big Woods.
The formula didn’t work. The piece did not speak. It looked nice, like something you’d find in a gift shop-nice. A trusted friend suggested that the sensual curves of the female form were lost under all the wood.
I took it apart, reworked it, fiddled with it until it was better. Still, there was a disconnect. Or was there?
I came to live in the Big Woods 10 years ago. It has become a key part of my healing and growth. Our little cabin is a place of escape. Here I learned to look forward to the slower pace of winter, the ritual of tending a fire, the peaceful silence a heavy snow brings. I see the silhouettes of naked trees spreading through the air like the Earth’s own arteries.
Nature illustrates the redemptive patterns of life and death, flourishing and decay, activity and rest. I’m also learning to trust my soul's seasonal cycle and live with the lessons each season brings.
Un-Done
Endings are hard. I struggle with completely letting go all at once. I let things lingert past their expiration date, thinking the pain will be easier to bear in smaller doses. I keep dying relationships on life support, ill-suited careers on a morphine drip. I hang my hopes in a magical wardrobe alongside a little black dress two sizes too small and a horde of shoes that may come back in style.
Maybe I hold onto old ideas and mindset as well. Someday-wishes and hope-so-dreams are the magical thinking that keep us from moving forward; at their best, fantasies and fairytales. At their worst, lies and delusions.
The problem with holding on too long is that it only delays finding what truly works. When I finally cut the cord, I make room for possibility. Messy endings become beautiful beginnings.
This piece started as a pure experiment in play. I liked the contrast of the white cording against the black form, all neat and tidy. I was intentional with the cord. Forming the circles felt comforting, and safe. Circles created a pleasant balance between organic and by design.
It wasn’t until I cut the cord that the piece came to life. The multicolored frayed ends came as a surprise.. They disrupted my perfectly balanced black-and-white creation. Was this the whole point? I discovered the art itself, the process of creating, was revealing truth, beauty, and meaning on its own, in ways I could not plan or conceive.
I have cut many cords. It was often brutal, but so is having something inevitably ripped away. Making a clean cut is often the better way. This piece taught me that letting go is not really the end. It is just a change in course along this windy, twisting and turning, non-linear life.
Maybe I hold onto old ideas and mindset as well. Someday-wishes and hope-so-dreams are the magical thinking that keep us from moving forward; at their best, fantasies and fairytales. At their worst, lies and delusions.
The problem with holding on too long is that it only delays finding what truly works. When I finally cut the cord, I make room for possibility. Messy endings become beautiful beginnings.
This piece started as a pure experiment in play. I liked the contrast of the white cording against the black form, all neat and tidy. I was intentional with the cord. Forming the circles felt comforting, and safe. Circles created a pleasant balance between organic and by design.
It wasn’t until I cut the cord that the piece came to life. The multicolored frayed ends came as a surprise.. They disrupted my perfectly balanced black-and-white creation. Was this the whole point? I discovered the art itself, the process of creating, was revealing truth, beauty, and meaning on its own, in ways I could not plan or conceive.
I have cut many cords. It was often brutal, but so is having something inevitably ripped away. Making a clean cut is often the better way. This piece taught me that letting go is not really the end. It is just a change in course along this windy, twisting and turning, non-linear life.
Untethered
The days when I feel like I am running on all four cylinders are few and far between. Most days are a struggle to stay on task, worrying about things I can’t control and silencing my negative, often catastrophic narratives.
But on those rare days when I can rise above my brain chatter, when I let go of comparisons, when I have a little compassion for myself when I do the things I love and bring me joy, on those days I am liberated from self-imposed shackles. On those days I feel like myself again: a capable and creative woman, optimistic, still full of potential. On those days, I soar untethered among my ever-morphing cloud-like dreams.
Wholeness sees me at my best and worst and still believes I can fly.
"We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke
But on those rare days when I can rise above my brain chatter, when I let go of comparisons, when I have a little compassion for myself when I do the things I love and bring me joy, on those days I am liberated from self-imposed shackles. On those days I feel like myself again: a capable and creative woman, optimistic, still full of potential. On those days, I soar untethered among my ever-morphing cloud-like dreams.
Wholeness sees me at my best and worst and still believes I can fly.
"We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke
Held
I am three in one, formed in the image of the Triune God: Mind, Body, Soul.
A tension holds these three elements as one whole, like the sacred tension which holds the elements of the universe perfectly together yet, perfectly apart.
Wholeness is an elegant dance requiring balance and rhythm, and practice. I get out of whack easily. The body demands constant attention! The spirit is fickle, given to extremes. And the mind, with all its reasoning and rationalizing, is always second guessing, chastising, and setting off paralyzing alarms.
It takes courage to hold this tension, to attend to each constituent, to bridle their strengths, to find compassion for weaknesses. When I am whole one does not dominate or overshadow the others.
"Reality is radically relational, and all the power is in the relationships themselves! Not in the particles or the planets, but in the space in between the particles and planets. It sounds a lot like what we called Holy Spirit." Fr Richard Rohr, from Yes And.
A tension holds these three elements as one whole, like the sacred tension which holds the elements of the universe perfectly together yet, perfectly apart.
Wholeness is an elegant dance requiring balance and rhythm, and practice. I get out of whack easily. The body demands constant attention! The spirit is fickle, given to extremes. And the mind, with all its reasoning and rationalizing, is always second guessing, chastising, and setting off paralyzing alarms.
It takes courage to hold this tension, to attend to each constituent, to bridle their strengths, to find compassion for weaknesses. When I am whole one does not dominate or overshadow the others.
"Reality is radically relational, and all the power is in the relationships themselves! Not in the particles or the planets, but in the space in between the particles and planets. It sounds a lot like what we called Holy Spirit." Fr Richard Rohr, from Yes And.
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