Scavenger Hunt

Each week day afternoon, I offer an art group for patients, siblings and any other family members who might wish to attend. Coming after "rest hour," its a welcome activity, providing a chance for parents to chat and kids to get up to their elbows in whatever we're doing that day.

Yesterday we only had one child, eight year old Sonya whose brother has been hospitalized for some time. Sonya loves the art group. Lately, though, as her brother's days in hospital have accumulated, she seems restless. What to do? Organize a one person scavenger hunt!

I found some small give-away toys that we keep, hid them carefully and came up with a list of funny clues about where they were placed, ex.: "Where would you go for a good cup of tea? (Why the dollhouse in the shape of a teapot of course!) As I hid the toys, two more kids joined us, six year old Sam and nine year old Jamie.

As the kids worked out the clues, their smiles were contagious (I mean that in the best way possible.) The hunt went so well I decided to auction off all the "found" toys with Sage, Sam's mom as the auctioneer and using Monopoly money for the bidding process. The kids loved it, getting into bidding wars and flashing goldenrod and sky blue colored slips of paper. (I kind of worried that some administrator would hear the noise and think we were gambling!) When the last stencil set was auctioned to the highest bidder at $600, everyone sighed with relief (they all came out even), pulled out their dragonfly, star and ladybug stencils and began to paint.

In some ways setting up this show, "Striking A Balance," has been its own kind of scavenger hunt. I found an unexpected treasure in my e-mail box yesterday; a post by my friend Beth Rommel about my work in her words. What a gift that was, the opportunity to see myself through another's eyes. Thank you Beth.

A good many of the pieces in the show were created last year when we lost a number of beloved patients. At the end of my rope, I decided to make memorials for each child. I went to work, collecting materials and scavenging for fabrics and images that resonated with each of the children I was thinking of. I quilted pieces of fabric together in colors that I associated with each child and stretched those over a 6" x 6" x 2' frame. Early on, I realized I couldn't keep each of the pieces true to that child.  I had to go further than the notion of "their favorite color or toy." At that point,  I let go of the notion of portraiture and to my surprise, the true nature of the relationship I'd had with each one of them emerged.
Pictured above from top to bottom:
Fan, Please, 2010, ©Hannah Klaus Hunter
Zig-zag Path, 2010 ©Hannah Klaus Hunter
Change Your Buddha, 2010 ©Hannah Klaus Hunter

Striking a Balance/ Take 2

I was lying face down on a dock this morning, peering through the space between two weathered gray boards.  Water rippled beneath me and I could see the sepia colored sandy lake bottom.  A momma merganser and her flock strolled on the nearby beach.

Me? I found myself wondering once more about this elusive thing called balance. 

I'd arrived in northern Minnesota two days before to celebrate my in-law's 60 wedding anniversary. I'd worked up to the time of my flight, trying to bring closure to my upcoming exhibit, "Striking A Balance".

Before I left, I went over to my artist friend Linda's house with  several collages. "Are you crazy?" my sister Amelia said to me. You're leaving tomorrow and you've got to focus!" I pleaded temporary insanity and thought about the need for a good visual editor.

Over the years, I've developed a healthy respect for a judicious critic before a show; someone who loves your work and can tell you the truth about what's missing. It's a means of seeking balance, because in the process of exploring a new direction its easy to lose your way. I also wondered if I could use Linda's suggestions to tweak my own inner balance and find my way back to the center.

Linda took one look at the rice paper covered panels I'd made for mounting my collages and prescribed multiple, multicolored glazes. I mixed the washes and began brushing on layers of deep yellow, olive and sepia. After several hours, I was about to leave when Linda pointed to the collages I'd brought and stated definitively: "That one's finished, that one's finished, but that one's not."

"Oh my word!" I thought to myself. It isn't crazy enough that I'm trying to do this all today, but she's gone and found another fly in the ointment! It seemed that I wasn't going to find my elusive inner balance just then. Back home, I picked up a Diet Coke and headed upstairs to the studio.

Four hours and 10 matte medium covered fingers later, I emerged, satisfied with what I'd acheived.
I plopped down on my bed and riffled through "Sacred Therapy," a book I'm reading, and found this passage:

Healing into our wholeness involves learning how to gracefully navigate our lives between these opposite poles of yesh and ayin, form and emptiness.

Intuitively, those words sounded right at the time, but they didn't really make sense to me until today, on the dock. Stripped of my "doingness" in the studio, I'd discovered ayin, or emptiness, right here in the space between the weathered boards on the dock.