There are only two lasting bequests we can give our children - one is roots, and the other, wings. 

Hodding S. Carter  

SACRED ART PLAY

Life Collage

Our cultural, spiritual, and ancestral roots can be a source of nourishment, a foundation that helps us live in the present and to move into the future. These roots are part of the framework that makes us who we are--unique and multi-faceted. Sometimes we need to honor our ancestors or family members to show our appreciation and deepen our sense of identity. We may need to get in touch with a spiritual or cultural heritage that can enrich our lives in the present.

Roots & Wings was created for a dear friend. Jeanette Murphy's  ancestral, cultural, and spiritual roots are in Ireland and Butte, Montana. She had had an exceptionally difficult year in 2008. This piece was an attempt to honor her roots in the past while pointing to hope for the future.

The family.

We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

Erma Bombeck

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. ~George Eliot

No I cannot forget where it is that I come from.  I cannot forget the people who love me.

John Mellencamp,

We shall not cease from exploration  And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started   And know the place for the first time. 

T.S. Eliot

Commission a personal work of art that captures the story of a life in image and word.

Honor someone you love

Celebrate your life

Remember special moments

Commemorate accomplishments

Your collage will capture moments, colors, and images that are most important to you.

I didn't know what to do with it until two years later when it found a home at the top of this collage along with a small charm that says "dream". The collage has an Irish coin on it, one of the few that didn't get spent on the trip. .

To the left is a close-up of the collage. The top half is meant to reflect the blue skies of Montana while the bottom half shows some of the "forty shades of green" that covers the Irish landscape along with a variety of images from her trip. You can see an image of Jeanette in front of a "Murphy's" pub in Ireland. The "family tree" snakes around the window. It is embellished with freshwater pearls - a symbol of something beautiful coming out of something annoying or difficult like a grain of sand in an oyster.

Roots & Wings - Jeanette Murphy's Story

Creating this collage was an amazing process. There were delightful serendipitous gifts that came to me as I worked on it and my muse was very generous with ideas about what to do.  It started with the idea of carving a window in a canvas. I didn't know what I was going to put in there; I just knew I wanted to make that window. Then I felt the impulse to use an idea I'd seen in a magazine of wrapping a twig with wire. I decided to use some copper wire I already had. Later, when researching her roots in Butte, I Iearned that copper was one of the main industries in that area. That branch evolved into a tree with a nod to "family tree". In 2007, Jeanette and a group of friends including me, traveleled to Ireland. While there I purchased a St. Bridget's Cross made of straw.