Of Mice & Owls

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Artist & Elder Gloria Simpson Speaks:

Because these are "Isolation in a time of plague" portraits, I wanted to reference that in the symbols I present as part of the image. Essentially(to me) the story is of an old woman , who is obviously a combination of two cultures: native American and European ( or colonizer) . This dichotomy is reconciled in the setting: outside in nurturing nature, but a cultivated and altered nature. It is a garden, but a garden that is blooming with mostly volunteer plants that have come up where and when they want to. , Alone (because of the Plague?)She is In isolation . She is wearing the colours black and white that symbolize west and north, or fall and winter, or death and the spirit world. ( she is from the North, and lives in the west, another thread of reality also made visual) She is wearing braids, the symbol of strength. One braid is wrapped in red, the colour of warrior life and is the colour seen by the spirits and our ancestors---she calls on that strength by the hand gesture, which is suggestive of open heart. The garden itself is full of the other of the four colours, yellow, the colour of spring, rebirth. The masks are " transformation " masks, superimposing spirit birds ( the owl and the red hawk) over human faces. These birds are totem animals, also suggestive of the reality of plague time: day and night creatures, life and death, the chain of interdependence of life. Make of it what you will. For me, I wanted to have these photos taken to show aspects of the reality of isolation in a time of plague, for a particular person. Meduh (gratitude)