Offering

Acrylic on Canvas – 16” by 20”
I have always collected interesting rocks and natural objects wherever I am and so does my daughter. The objects in the painting were all found objects collected near the Humber River. The tree is hidden in a park near where we live. It started as a ritual that my daughter Carly shared with me. The ritual was a special offering to the world – her hair that had fallen out because of chemotherapy was placed in a natural opening in a tree behind an arrangement of some found objects that were intrinsically beautiful. The found objects consisted of a stone, a piece of colored glass, a broken piece of ceramics and a seed pod. After the private ritual, what is left becomes like a shrine with whatever significance the viewer wants it to have.
I read that an obos is a Japanese term for a pile of rocks, often only three - one on top of another. The obos merely says, "I was here." Being an unusual configuration, it is obviously from the hand of man. They can be put anywhere. An artist friend wrote that an "Obos is a destination, a sanctuary, a shrine and a focal point that reminds us that we work with our hands. We are builders and what we build is sacred. An Obos may appear inconsequential and be unnoticed by casual passersby. It's a private tribute to something higher, something we might be striving for but find difficult to attain. One should approach an obos with a relaxed, curious mind. It can help with answers to questions not consciously asked. An Obos gives pause, a contemplative thought or a new direction, a respite from clutter, a re dedication to our struggle and an affirmation of the value of our personal effort. An Obos is the carrier of a golden secret." It links the viewer with someone outside themselves and opens the mind and heart to one's humanness.
An Obos is like art its self. Like the temporal seed pod in the painting, the obos and what it stands for can travel and grow.
This painting is my “Offering” to my daughter Carly.