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Grandmother Raven - Helena Nelson-Reed

Grandmother Raven Painting - Grandmother Raven Fine Art Print

Artwork: #26 of 76 by Helena Nelson-Reed

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Helena Nelson-Reed - Grandmother Raven Painting - Grandmother Raven Fine Art Print

Grandmother Raven Painting by Helena Nelson-Reed

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woman paintings, grandmother paintings, moon paintings, raven paintings, bird paintings, crone paintings, spirit paintings, celtic paintings, native american paintings

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Title:

Grandmother Raven

Artist:

Helena Nelson-Reed

Medium:

Painting - Watercolor And Pencil On Board

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Price

$3,500.00

Dimensions

12.000 x 12.000 inches

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Description:

This panting evokes the Raven, a potent totem. Ravens are adaptable, resourceful, inquisitive, intelligent, and adept at assessing situations. Depending upon the culture, they're associated with intelligence, auspicious poetry, loyalty, treachery, trickery, greed, augury, death, battles, survival, and guidance. Survivors, they�ll scavenge, steal, yet seem equally happy to aid and hunt with their sometime allies, the wolf and eagle nations. As totem, raven is for a strong and intelligent person who loves the company of others of his or her kind but is equally happy alone as well. Raven people have a sense of humor ranging from bawdy slapstick and practical jokes to dark, sardonic humor and rapacious wit. Trust a raven to find the ironic in any situation, and know he/she will be quick to share the laugh. They�ve a tendency to collect objects they find interesting, usually bright, shiny, sparkly, flashy and small things. I�ve heard of raven caches holding only golf balls pinched from the local courses. Last year I taught a watercolor workshop in Yellowknife NT, 100 miles south of the arctic circle, a place that must be the raven capital of the world. Many women I met there also like them and had stories illustrating just how special these corvids are. Raven flies through the spiritual traditions and myths of Celtic and First Nations peoples. Sometimes with positive associations, other times not, depending on the culture telling the story. This painting was created a few years ago and the exerpt is taken from the portion of my notes describing the way I personally relate to ravens. My father died a few months ago, prior to that he was cared for by my mother and myself, with home health (hospice) nurses coming by every three days. Watching a loved one slowly depart mind and body over a course of days, weeks, months and even years is something many women (and men) are doing these days. Our children grow up, but within a few years we begin caring for aging parents. This painting celebrates not only raven and the waning moon, crone phase of life but the way observing the decline and death of loved ones can sober a person. We look death straight in the eye, realizing that the empty darkness within the skull's socket is our fate as well. This realization, once it hits you in the gut, is strangely liberating and can shed new light and perspective. Sometimes, at the end of those long days taking care of dad and witnessing all that transired, I'd stand outside in the Texas night. I'd breath in the cool, cedar scented air, gaze up at the moon and try to process it all, just like the woman in this painting. "From birth, when we enter the world of light, until death, when we journey outward through the center of the Big Dipper and onward to the land beyond the pines, women own the power to perpetuate tradition and culture. Worldwide, regardless of patriarchal society�s efforts to negate, steal, and belittle this truth, woman is the cohesive balance within the family. Our caring hands deliver new life, and often escort life out of this world as well, when we care for and accompany our dying relatives to the very end. Our love and actions weave the strands of life within family and community into a cohesive net. When society convinces us otherwise, or prevents women from doing so, the net frays and unravels. The burdens are often heavy, yet women endeavor to perpetuate their powerful role within family and community. All women are sacred, carrying within the promise of future generations. Nothing and nobody can take this away. " Text and image copyright Helena Nelson -Reed. Please do not use without written permission.

Tags:

painting, painting paintings, woman paintings, grandmother paintings, moon paintings, raven paintings, bird paintings, crone paintings, spirit paintings, celtic paintings, native american paintings

Posted:

September 20th, 2008

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