Artists’ Inspirations
This section of the exhibit provides the artists’ sources of inspiration for their paintings. One painter took her inspiration from her stone cairns, while the others took theirs from writers, poems, or quotations. Text in quote marks are the paintings’ titles.
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Elisabeth (Beth) Hudgins
Elisabeth Hudgins’s own stone cairns are the source of her inspiration for her paintings; she based several of her paintings on the cairns, photos of which are displayed here.
Cairn 1
Cairn 2
Cairn 3
Cairn 4
Linda Maldonado
“I Am the Beauty Running Through the World”
Title inspired by Teilhard de Chardin
Waterfalls are a perfect embodiment of Mother Nature: powerful, ever-changing, life- giving, and stunningly beautiful.
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“The Light Hidden within Nature”
Title inspired by Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee
Who does not feel the magnetic appeal of the leaping water that dissolves into rivers and pools, reflecting, changing, shouting, and powerful.
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“The Earth Is a Holy Place”
Title inspired by Teilhard de Chardin
Teilhard de Chardin had the rare perception to see the world as a deeply spiritual manifestation of The Divine, spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.
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“Within Are the Sacred Mysteries of Life”
The Feminine has always signified mystery and a profound connection to life. It is the wellspring of intuition.
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“Hidden Aquifers Where Life’s Water Flows”
Title quote by Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee
Water bubbles up through the rocks, gathers in caves, spills over edges, gurgles through crevices, and sponsors life along the way.
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“Sacred Waters, Holy Ground”
Poet Christina Rossetti wrote, “Tread Softly! All the earth is holy ground.” The emergence of spring waters from the rocks is a miracle and a divine gift, nurturing plants and animals and embodying hope.
Elise Ritter
“The Dream Team”
That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great. ~ Willa Cather
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“Best Friends”
My friends have made the story of my life. ~ Helen Keller
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“Going Solo”
There is a great deal of unmapped country within us. ~ George Eliot
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“Reading Meditation”
We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. ~ Mary McCarthy
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“Blue Madonnas”
Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. ~ Terry Tempest Williams
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“Family Lore”
Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family. ~ Anthony Brandt
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“Mother Earth Love: Trees and Mountains”
Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. ~ Roald Dahl
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“Mother Earth Love: Reflections in a Garden Pond”
If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnet
Deborah Taylor
All of the titles of Deborah Taylor’s paintings are quotations from Mary Oliver poems.
“ I Stood There Once, On the Green Grass, Scattering Flowers”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Flares” in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin Press, 2017)
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“A Madness of Delight, an Obsession”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Wild, Wild” in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin Press, 2017)
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“The Flowers, Anyway, Are Happy Just Where They Are”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Doesn’t Every Poet Write a Poem about Unrequited Love?” in Thirst (Beacon Press, 2007)
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“Even Now I Remember Something in the Way a Flower in a Jar of Water Remembered Its Life in the Perfect Garden”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “The Book of Time” in The Leaf and The Cloud: A Poem (Da Capo Press, 2000)
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“Oh, To Love What Is Lovely and Will Not Last”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Snow Geese” in Why I Wake Early: New Poems (Beacon Press, 2005)
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“Love, Cadence, Sweetness, and Briskness”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “The Dipper” in Owls and Other Fantasies (Beacon Press, 2003) in Mary Oliver New and Selected Poems, Vol. Two (Beacon Press, 2005) and Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin Press, 2017)
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“Sometimes There Are No Rules”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Three Things to Remember” in A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Books, 2013) and in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin Press, 2017)
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“Have You Heard Them Singing in the Wind?”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Goldfinches” in Owls and Other Fantasies (Beacon Press, 2003) and in Mary Oliver New and Selected Poems, Vol. One (Beacon Press, 1992)
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“It is a Curious Thing Just to Be Alive”
Quoted from Mary Oliver, “Invitation” in A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Books, 2013)
Note: The poem uses the word “serious” instead of “curious”.
