Australian Artist Trading Cards

ATCs evocative of Aboriginal artwork
Phillip Hoyle, 2017

Last week’s ATC workshop opened with a trade of cards on the theme Australia or New Zealand. I missed the opening trade but joined the group for the workshop. There I finished a few cards reflective of Australian Aboriginal designs and joined in the final trade of the night. So much fun.

Since then I’ve made more, some of which I’m showing here. I began by cutting four printing blocks with designs to use as a base for elaboration. Then I printed onto cards that I’d already bubble printed. From there I responded to lines of both printing approaches and some techniques of Aboriginal artists I found on line, some ancient petroglyph designs and some current aboriginal paintings. What a world they discovered in dream time.

I still have a dozen more to finish. I’m ready to trade them and others at our next trade at CORE New Art Space on the second Saturday of August (10 am to noon). Join the fun.

ATCs Phillip Hoyle, 201u

Circus Big Top

The theme for the Artist Trading Cards swap at CORE New Art Space last Saturday was Circus. I had thought and thought about the theme recalling circuses of my childhood, especially one that set up west of town with a big top and side shows and of course lots of animals. I made some ATCs of the theme that required a three-panel as they are called among swappers. They got snapped up right away at the trade. I treated the image in three different ways.

Making these tents was great fun and reminded me of many details both seen at the circus and in movies about circuses. But the circus isn't just tents or just the three rings inside the very large big top. It's much more and I had to work more to capture some if the fun.

After the tent is set up, the performers begin practicing to make sure everything is safe for them and the crowd. That's when the color increases and the anticipation grows. Of course there are clowns, but I had made clown cards galore in the past year. I thought and thought and got the idea to do a tribute to the NY artist Keith Haring. So with apologies to his memory, I presented some of the circus people and animals a la Haring with cards I titled Keith Haring Meets Barnum and Bailey.

I mostly hope you, dear reader, have a good art week!

Denver, 2015

A Gathering of Bears

I’ve long been fascinated by bears, those large lunky denizens of zoos I used to watch with admiration and fear. I bought a figurine of one in Estes Park as a child, a figure I kept with me into my adulthood. Then I discovered bear paw prints and bears in a panel of petroglyphs on the south-facing escarpment of Spring Mesa west of Montrose, Colorado. They thrilled me. The panel has been dubbed The Three Bears since three carvings of bears climbing trees appear there. The symbol is still current in the traditional bear dance of the Utes who used to spend time each year in the valley. Perhaps they held their annual vernal equinox dance there. 

Recently another Ute bear petroglyph image has captured my imagination, one from the Gunnison River some miles north east of the three bears. This bear looks ferocious to me. I painted it several times and have now used it in a lino-block for printing. This past week I printed. My artist friend Sue suggested I try printing on different kinds of art papers to see what would happen. So I printed on roadmaps, hand made papers, papers with seeds or leaves or strings embedded in them. I hd fun with my brayer, baren and tiny Speedball press. And I’m pleased with the results.

Some of these prints will be shown at the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown. Going on a color drive into the mountains soon? Stop by the gallery and see all the additional colors there as well. Oh, the food’s good up there, too.

Denver, 2014

Table Talk: Anointing

Collage of petroglyph rubbing on mat.

I sometimes wish I could ride to the rescue in my work as a massage therapist. I'd like to have a strong horse or group of horses to assist me in arriving at just the right time with just the perfect touch and just the proper measure of wisdom to share, but that rarely happens. I like this image of something--I think of a rider on a horse that is moving so fast as to appear to have many legs. 
I wish I could be so able.




     Michael died on Sunday. He wasn’t my first loss to HIV and AIDS, but this was different. I was present, and I loved this guy unlike any man I had ever loved. He was comatose when he died, had been for several hours. His RN sister and I gave him medications every fifteen minutes or so for pain control, and then he just stopped breathing. His heart quit beating. He died quietly.

     Over several months I had watched his body turn on itself, nourish itself with its own mass as the disease started overpowering the immune system. Michael lost his appetite. I observed his weight loss and saw him hike up his pants with ever-tighter belts. He became unsure on his feet, had little strength, and needed to sleep long hours each day.

     I studied his body after his last breath, its continuing losses of color, movement, and shape. The little bit of muscle and fat left seemed to deflate. His all-too-prominent skull became more pronounced. I observed his dog, Willie, regard Michael after the death. He, too, noticed the difference. Ozzie, his other dog, wouldn’t look at him, but through his nervous behavior, communicated his awareness that Michael was dead.

     I have lost a friend and lover in this death. Tears well up in my eyes and my throat clutches when I think or talk about Michael. I feel alone. While I have some of Michael’s friends as new friends of mine, I don’t have Michael to visit, to eat with, to lie next to, to laugh with, to hold close to me. I am sad at the loss of one I loved, one who loved me.

     I felt like Mary Magdalene when I massaged Michael, understanding that I was helping prepare him for his death. As I kept watch at his death I felt like her again, she who had stood at Jesus’ cross and watched him die. I helped lower the bed and re-arrange Michael’s body after death, as Mary helped receive Jesus’ body when it was removed from the cross. And like Mary, who rushed to Jesus’ grave after Sabbath in order to anoint him, I wanted to apply oil to Michael’s body.

     I stood in Michael’s bedroom remembering what a Greek Orthodox priest had told me: how a dead priest is anointed by other priests. I wanted to do something similar with Michael. But because I was afraid it might freak out his sister or the hospice nurse who came to the house quickly after his death, I contented myself with anointing his forehead. Searching the room, I found some lotion. I rubbed it on his face, following its contours and, finally, I made signs of a circle and a cross as a kind of prayer, a final touching. It was my own good-bye to Michael.

     Following the advice of a book I had been reading, I decided not to ask why, but rather, what now? What next? Two days later I went to my volunteer work at the AIDS clinic. My first client that day was even skinnier than Michael. I traced his ribs and sought ways to rub my hands comfortably over his bony shoulders. Tears fell from my eyes. I worked to channel all the love I had for Michael into my client’s body. By contrast, my last client of the day had a well-developed and ample body. I told him how pleased I was to massage a body that appeared so healthy. Still I cried and touched and loved. My work has aided me with my grief process, providing me reminders rather than rejection of loss. At the same time, it keeps me focused on a future of staying connected to a community where I encounter others’ needs and an opportunity to care for them.

     In a world where many people live with AIDS, I can expect to encounter many losses of friends and acquaintances. I want to mourn them properly and lovingly. I am prepared to help them live with the comfort of massage right up to the time of their deaths. I feel sure I will be able to offer my services to them as a living memorial to Michael.

Table Talk: Power

Colorado Cave Bear painting by Phillip Hoyle

     As I entered Alfredo’s massage office, my attention was drawn to a Navajo saddle blanket woven of wool yarn in several shades of brown. Though clearly the centerpiece of the room, the blanket was in sorry shape. Someone had tried to repair its fraying edges to keep it useful or, at least, intact. But the design itself had not been damaged. Its saw-toothed mountain pattern dominated the space, creating a sense of movement. I liked the design, but the blanket’s greatest appeal for me was knowing that it had been used for many years. I ran my hands over its surface, surprised and pleased by the softness of the wool. Touching it, I got goose bumps on my neck and head.

     “What do you feel from it?” Alfredo asked. I had recalled the red monoliths of Monument Valley, and imagined horses resting after a day of riding across mesas and mountains. I could almost smell burning piñon from an evening campfire where an old-timer told Navajo tales of sheep, snakes, and sex on the Rez. I pictured stacks of weavings in a trading post, but none of them were quite so attractive as this beat up blanket. But I explained to Alfredo only about having the goose bumps. They continued for about a minute, reaching down my backbone to its base.

     “When I felt it,” Alfredo continued, “I had images of a shaman. I think he used the blanket in healing ceremonies. It’s a very strong feeling. There’s lots of energy there.” My friend was sure that the blanket still had in it power for healing.

     Alfredo discovered the blanket in a pawn shop along with a bear skin. He purchased both: this healer’s blanket and the skin of an animal widely regarded for its healing properties and, in spirit form, for its aid in healing ceremonies. The blanket hangs on the wall over his massage table. I suspect the bear skin may be in the room as well, although I didn’t see it. Perhaps he placed it beneath the pad on his massage table.

     My friend reminds me of the Navajo bear priest in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel Ceremony. The old man was called to help save a child from the bear people into whose territory the youngster had wandered. In one scene, the priest runs towards the bear canyon, strapping onto his wrists sprigs of spruce, readying himself for the ceremony that would call the boy away from the beasts. I picture Alfredo bedecking his massage table’s legs with spruce branches in anticipation of the arrival of a client he wants to help. Certainly Alfredo is a kind of priest, a healer.

     I once helped organize a seminar that sought to create a New Mexico definition of health. The event brought together medics, lawyers, judges, philosophers, theologians, social workers, psychologists, Hispanic curanderas, and Native healers. We talked. We laughed. We prayed. Together. We created a statement that we hoped would assist the New Mexico legislature as it tried to create health laws to benefit all the citizens of the state.

     Green-eyed, Mexican-American Alfredo manifests a similar inter-cultural, multi-lingual, broad-perspective definition of health. While he gives Swedish massage, he is always alert to his intuition, informed by the traditions of the curandera. He uses Native symbols and techniques in his work. My buddy believes in his intuitive insight, finding it both meaningful and helpful.

     If Alfredo hadn’t asked me what I felt when I touched the blanket, I believe I would not have noticed my goose bumps, or if I had, I would have registered them as only a response to touching the very soft and worn wool. Still, my mind was working in response to the touch. Did I, too, sense a lingering energy in the rug? While I was pleased to have seen and touched it, my rationalist education regarding common and holy things stood in the way of my perceiving the item as being imbued with power.

     An old woolen rug. Is it more than a common object? The designs worked into it do have some kind of religious meaning. I can easily accept that the weaving does have symbolic power such as theologian Paul Tillich described--the existential power of true symbols. Perhaps the blanket does “partake” of the power to which it points. I wonder, though, at the notion that the rug itself may contain some of the strength of mountains or the capacity to heal. I feel I cannot begin to answer my questions, but I do connect the rug with the bear skin and see their potent symbolism for healing.

     My own experience alerts me to some possibilities. Perhaps my goose bumps relate only to my imagination of Native American life, but such images may provide actual connections with a past and a present reality. They could communicate an invitation for me to accept and use healing energy. I do not want to project an image of myself as some kind of psychic or magical healer. But while I usually want to limit myself to ordinary experience, at the same time, I would like to open myself to any potentials that may reside within me. My thoughts want to be more than thoughts, definitions more than words for someone else’s use, scenes from books more than simply literature. Perhaps the power of blankets and bear skins can become as plain and ordinary a power for me as they are for Alfredo.

Table Talk: Zoo

One panel from triptych of big horn sheep painting
by Phillip Hoyle

     Dianne, a classmate in massage school, asked if I would go with her to the zoo. She had an invitation to give massage there at the Hep-Fest, an educational outreach for people who may have been exposed to or are living with Hepatitis C. She needed one other massage therapist. I agreed to accompany her.

     We unloaded our equipment and lugged it to the designated area near the pachyderm house. We set up our tables under a big tent. Since people were already waiting for massage, we began work immediately. Between clients we met our therapist neighbors. An acupuncturist, who worked next to me, was sticking willing people with needles. Some of the needles had clumps of moss on the end, which she set on fire. They smoked, adding heat to the treatment as well as an air of the exotic to the scene. On the other side of Dianne was a good-looking Asian-American jock at a booth promoting physical fitness through exercise. Dianne, bright and beautiful, worked in Swedish style, rubbing oil on people’s legs, backs, and arms. I worked in Thai style, compressing points along meridians and stretching joints. The regal trumpeting of elephants contrasted with the pitiful cries of peacocks. Ducks waddled past with their ducklings in queue. And people, lots of people, mingled in the mix, watching a magician, a storyteller, and a caricature artist. They visited information booths. Some got massage.

     My main massage teacher spoke of his therapy room as a sacred space. In it he provides symbols, ceremony, and an atmosphere of healing. Emulating him, I made my therapy room a kind of sanctuary, a space dedicated to the practice of massage. My clients climb the stairs and enter, discovering artwork, candles, a water fountain, incense, and plants. The subdued atmosphere assists in relaxation. Overseeing the sessions are patron saints Mary Magdalene and the wise woman of my massage vision. They bring holiness to the space and to the work.

     I imagine there may be saints who bless each place I work. At the zoo, surely one can sense the presence of St. Francis of Assisi; the animals have called him there. St. John the Baptist seems to hover over the spa, where people come for pain relief, image remakes, and water treatments. I’m sure I saw St. Martha, patron of servers, when I was giving a massage at the coffee shop. St. Hillary, patron of attorneys, walked down the hallway when I worked at the lawyer’s office. Presumably, scholar Saints Jerome and Bede oversaw the learning of techniques and traditions in the massage school classrooms and clinic.

     While massage does not depend upon the presence of holy figures, it seems always to be a holy undertaking that may be enhanced by visualization. Massage serves as an invitation into a sanctuary, a safe place for relaxation and perhaps reflection. The external setting may be important, but whatever the outward conditions, massage discovers and exalts the sacred space of the body and always recognizes the holy one who is receiving the work. At a conference, massage relieves tired muscles caused by too many hours sitting and concentrating. In a business office, it creates a calm place within the body. In a coffee shop, the client already has come aside for refreshment. Privacy is afforded by the face cradle and sanctity by the experience of the massage itself.

     Zoo, workplace, spa, clinic, or studio, all can be significant places for massage. Each space, whether everyday or extraordinary, teaches some new aspect of holiness and invites a novel reflection on the body itself. One’s body is the necessary space for any massage. Even so, I am still looking for new places and people to massage. Perhaps I could work on you in the Botanical Gardens. Will we discover the gardeners’ patron St. Fiacre there tending flower beds? Perhaps St. Francis surrounded by his bird friends? It doesn’t matter, but they may lend a sense of the sacredness of your own self, your body, your life.

Herd Leader painting by Phillip Hoyle
Native American petroglyphs across North America often
portray animals. Animal spirits were sought as power totems
and the animals themselves as a major food source. In Euro-
American tradition saints often have animal symbols
attached to their portrayals. I came to realize that the connection
may be as old as humanity itself. If saints are sensitive to
animals, why not the rest of uss? Well it's an idea. 

Table Talk: Arf!

          Antonio and I are addicted to drinking coffee together. We became acquainted at a coffee shop that serves great drinks and has couches that often serve as our living rooms. I noticed him there occasionally over several months before we talked with one another. I appreciated the way he greeted and conversed with many different kinds of people--beautiful and unbeautiful, outgoing and shy, young and old. Eventually, we started acknowledging each other’s presence with a nod or a smile. Now we talk while I sip coffee, he a mocha.

      As our coffee drinking demands grew, we started fixing brew in one or the other’s apartment, and when I’d come to his place, I was enthusiastically greeted by his miniature poodles. Shinti, a white fluffball of energy would immediately jump into my lap, greet me with licks and love, and hold court over the rest of the house from her high throne. Konti, her more reserved brother, would sidle up to me and quietly lean against my leg. Nice dogs. Nice master. I enjoyed petting the dogs and drinking coffee with Antonio.

     One day, when I was still a student at the massage school, I was having a cup of coffee at Antonio’s apartment. I reached down to Konti and massaged along his backbone from his neck down to his hips. He arched his back into my touch, encouraging me to keep up the good work. With my fingertips I made circles around his hips and shoulders thinking about how the musculature was similar to that of humans. When I finished, Konti shook his ears and whole body, looked up at me, and then trotted away.

     Next time I showed up at their apartment, Shinti didn’t have a chance even to greet me before Konti was on my lap, pushing his little hiney into my stomach. When I didn’t immediately put my hands on him, he looked around at me with his big eyes as if to plead, “Massage me.” I did and was amused at how he took control. When the pressure wasn’t quite right, he leaned into or away from me. When a particular place seemed finished, Konti presented me with another spot he wanted me to palpate. Over the next weeks I watched this quiet, beautiful poodle metamorphose into an insistent massage hog.

     Since that time I’ve met other dogs and found out they all like massage. My friend Michael had two cute dogs. Willie was a White Westie, and Ozzie, a Blue Karen Terrier. Always-friendly Willie and often-grumpy Ozzie enjoyed my improving doggie massage technique. (Konti and Shinti had taught me almost as much as my schooling.) Willie got more massage because of his easy-going ways. Ozzie, on the other hand, was more insistent, and when he wanted a massage, like Konti, he turned his back or shoulder or head to me. He’d paw my hand anytime it went slack and would try to lift it with his wet nose to get it back into action.

     This summer, Ferdinand, the house painter’s pooch, started getting massage. Large, reddish, and long-haired, he accompanies his master to the building where I live and hangs out in the shade while Jay paints. The dog loves my touch. He likes whatever I do to him, but he always presents his right hip for massage. If I forget to work it, he follows me, pushing his nose into my hand and his hip against my leg.

     I keep looking at advertisements for canine massage training. Some days I think I might enjoy study and work in that area, but most of the time I realize I simply want to work on these dog friends, small and large, and enjoy their individual responses to my massages. I did learn a therapeutic move from Willie, who loved to shake his soft toys back and forth when he finally won a tug-of-war. Now, while doing chair massage, I sometimes grab a client’s shoulder and give it a doggie shake to loosen the upper trapezium muscle in the effective way Willie demonstrated. (I usually refrain from growling while doing so.) My best hope from these dog contacts, though, is to be the kind of massage therapist that combines Shinti’s enthusiasm, Konti’s calm, Willie’s good nature, Ozzie’s clarity, and Ferdinand’s beauty in my work, along with a strong brew of Antonio’s vast charm.

Photos of Shinti and Konti provided by Tony Garcia Pelaez