Revealed is a project in which people’s portraits are taken with items they chose to reveal who they are and their relationship with spirit.
Choosing symbols for my box would likely be different on any given day, but my revelations would likely be similar. The box rests on a book; not just any book. It is a high school yearbook which represents a major passion and theme in my life — teaching. I started out as a high school art teacher. Teaching is a form of giving. Painting represents, to me, a kind of going to the well for fuel. The two small prints are representative of a collection of over a thousand small prints created in the three months after 9/11. I was mesmerized and sat in front of the TV painting everyone who appeared on the screen. The pastels symbolize a lifetime love of color. A headset plugs into my MAC or to my telephone and connects me to the outside world and allows the world to become my classroon. The sounding of the small Tibetan bell reminds me to breath when stressed.
I see the box as symbols for the relationships between giving and receiving. There are people on the planet who give if the get. There are people on the planet I describe as takers. It feels so good to take that they need to take more. There are others who give and that feels so good they give more. That is where I used to live until I ran out of gas. Today I focus on another possible configuration. I receive in order to give. In that sense, creating is receiving the energy of the Universe and giving, which for me is teaching, is a give away of what I have received. That means living a life of conscious balance.
