figurative and abstract

[Stephanie]

Do you always look for figurative images in the wood to express
yourself, or do you ever create something purely abstract?
I ask this because I have been staring at so many different pieces of
wood for a long time now, and i can't bring myself to see any images
or scenes. I am more interested in colour, and shape; letting
my imagination take presidence over concrete images. Would this
approach work in creating a painting in your style?

[laur...@lauraleekharris.com]

Hi Stephanie,
I think that is what defines my work. Seeing the imagery in the work
and then finding the subconscious journey inside, reflecting the
uniqueness of this form of work that I do. Although my work has been
described as Abstract, it is formed into the subjective, by the mind.
Some people's frame of mind work that way and mine is like that. I
will look at anything abstract and find imagery in it. Like a soap
bubble, or the water marks left on a ceiling tile, or the way my
broken strands of my hair form on my bathroom sink or the way stones
are stratifed and clouds shift their shapes from one to another, I
file them all into a subjective place, like a myth or a legend or a
story, it takes a meaning and completes a circle. That is my
Indigenous way of thinking. It is circular not linear. Abstract to my
mind is linear in that it leads to one spot and stays there. And not
to say that all Indigenous peoples don't paint abstracts, but
traditionally, pure abstract detracts from subjective shape and form
needed in story telling and story telling is part of our culture.
Finding imagery in the wood is a spiritual journey and if I found
abstract imagery, there would be no story to tell, but purely the
esthetic which defines mainstream art from Indigenous contemporary or
traditional work.

But even our languages form imagery with meanings as they form our
culture. For example: Our languages are mostly Verb oriented. Our
languages actually take nouns that we perceive as nouns and replicate
it to a verb by creating metaphor and attaching this movement of
lesson onto the static form. All spirit have this life. For instance,
taking the North and attaching the meaning of Winter and snow and
wisdom to a direction, attaching the meaning of a season to a
direction or an age. North is static while age and season change; A
season changes with the weather and an age changes with growth.
Weather and Growth are movements of life attached to a place, a noun.
Unlike myth, legend and stories, this is the language of the medicine
wheel but also part of the language itself, for the Ojibwe language as
are most Native tongues, Verb Based languages and consist of mostly
verbs for everything is in a constant flow and flux of changes and
growth and becoming, just like we are. Life was not abstract and
static but a moving pulsing spirit that was in constant change and
completed yearly in a cycle, from spring to winter, just like a ring
in the core of a tree and how we mark our Birthdays.
Long answer but a pleasure none the less,
Thank you,
LauraLee.