A Space to Breathe

"A Morning with Thrush Song" watercolor on paper, 15"x22", VClaff, 2016

 Rainy, dark days have taken root for a week now, the forest is murky, holding tight to shadows gathered at the trunks of drooping conifer boughs. Fires burn in winter-worn hearths, the smoke settling low, unable to rise above 

heavy mists. 

"Swamp, Mists & Peeper Songs", 22" x30", VClaff, 2016

I startled a bit to see how long it has been since I've come to share here, 

its been a long and somewhat challenging school year. Teaching is always 

rewarding, but I'm doing more of it and was feeling rather worn-out. With 

my commitments at school done this week, I am finding space again. 

"A Scent of Ferns" watercolor on paper, 15"x22", VClaff, 2016

My winter schedule was Monday through Wednesday teaching,Thursday and 

Friday in the studio. If I had to continue, Saturdays were spent in the studio as 

well. It was fruitful. Seeds that were planted in some of the paintings in the previous 

post have matured into work that feels close to capturing the deeply storied 

places I wander.

"A Place for Dreaming" watercolor on paper, 15"x22", VClaff, 2016

Just today I gathered up the paintings here from the framer, 

and tomorrow they will head off to a show at the NESTO Gallery at 

Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts. The show opens Friday, May 13, and

features a small group of alumni. If you are in the area, come by! For 

information about the gallery and directions, follow the link here.

 

"Water's Edge" watercolor on paper, 15"x22", VClaff, 2016

 Always at the meeting of a deadline, as work is collected from the framer, 

a pause to gather myself is needed. It has been a week of endings as groups 

gathered around the world to welcome in the spring, I said goodbye to a particularly inspiring group of students, and my new workheads off into the world for a time. A horribly neglected garden needs my attention, and some quiet dreaming 

beside the unfurling ferns is planned. 

In case you are wondering about Rhu Bear... he is doing well, monitoring 

my movements in the studio when I am there, and greeting me at the door to the 

house when I return from my travels, expecting belly rubs, of course.

Reflecting on the Full Harvest Moon

Fires are beginning to be needed, now and again, as the colder weather slowly 

creeps over the land. Its a funny time of year, this transition. One day it is cold 

and raw, air scented with woodsmoke as I walk out in the early morning, the next 

it is warm and slightly humid, dragonflies flitting about. The forest is still full 

of late summer crickets, and squirrels and chipmunks busy with foraging. The oak 

trees are dropping acorns that ping off the metal roof as loud as gunfire. With 

the first few weeks of teaching and winter preparation, the most I've managed in 

the studio is a few more teeny tiny paintings. 

I enjoy these small, dreamy forest paintings. I like taking time with them, creating 
tiny worlds that invite me deep inside to explore their mysterious realms. Two are
framed and sitting by my dining room table offering me somewhere to travel as 
I eat my meals. 

Outside, I wander close to the house, looking at the layers of green 

textures and finding great joy in the small moments of beauty here. 

Its the time of black-eyed susans, and fall-blooming asters and perennial 

sunflowers and obedient plant practically obscuring the old studio.  

There is still plenty of magic to be found if I bend down and look inside things,
and the dragonflies and phoebes continue to patrol the garden looking for prey. 

Some flowers have gone to seed, 

while others are still offering up their pollen. 

Crumbling, dried flowers begin to top the stalks, and 

hopeful seeds fly away on the wind. Hints of the last 

blast of color are beginning to show - I mourn the flowers, 

and celebrate the decay, too. 

Autumn work is upon me, this pile is almost stacked in the shed, but another 

one was just delivered. This Equinox weekend will find me working outside 

with the squirrels, stacking my winter heat away. 

And today I'm reflecting on a life - today would have been 

my mother's 77th birthday. In a month, a day before my 

fiftieth birthday, it will be a year since her death. 

After I post this, I will go the moss garden, and sit 

with the full harvest moon 

and maybe hum a bit 

- close the earth -  

where my mother's ashes 

have become 

the land. 

Small Worlds

Small work - roughly 8"x10" - yet to be titled

It rained so hard today - sheets and sheets of rain... 

for the first time in my life, I actually felt a little fear. 

I feared the ever intensifying rains might never slow. 

A clearing in mid-afternoon brought a steady rhythm of drops

in pools and puddles and overflowing birdbaths. Hemlock trees, 

mosses and ferns celebrated the rain by wearing balls of colored light. 

Tiny red and green jewels dangled and danced at the end of 

branches. Science tells me the water was refracting sunlight, 

but I recognize magic, too, when I see it. 

Small work - roughly 8"x10" - yet to be titled

In the studio last week, I practiced what I preach - the great 

exercise of many, many small studies to explore deep into 

the world of one's work. In a very small sketchbook, I made 

teeny tiny paintings - about the size of index cards - 

and had a wonderful, woodland journey. 

The next 6 images are Teeny Tiny Paintings...  

they informed the Small Work above. 

I learn so much from this practice, and am interested in a 

number of them in their own right - small worlds I 

like to travel in.

The next three images are also exploratory, but they are 

the larger size, around 8"x10". In truth, I approach most 

of my work as an exploration, it keeps me searching, 

wondering what else is possible, what will I find, 

just beyond that next tree? 

I'm celebrating feeling a little better, day by day. 

I have posted more here in the past week than 

I have in long while. Trying out short posts to see what that is like, 

though this might not qualify as short anymore.

Quiet Gifts of the Forest on Solstice

"Goddess Shrine", America's Stonehenge 2007, 

by Valerianna Claff, Katja Esser, and Lisa Bouchie

Today we mark the longest day of the year in 

the northern hemisphere. At RavenWood, 

we will gather for a ritual fire and witness 

the light fading into dark. For many years I 

co-facilitated a huge celebration at America's Stonehenge 

in New Hampshire. My friend, Katja Esser, 

had been creating a big, public celebration for 

years before I joined her in 2000. We took it to a whole 

new level together employing our artistic skills to create 

impressive clay shrines and ritual spaces. My favorite shrine 

was the one that had been in my mind for several years - 

a huge, clay goddess at the center of the circle. We built her out 

of artists clay and natural clay that Lisa dug from the side of 

a river bed. We spent the whole day prior to the celebration 

building her. Below, Katja and I work on the detail of her face.

In the ritual,the participants each had a 

moment to enter the centerof the circle and 

place a flower symbolizing their authentic selves 

in the belly of the Goddess. It was a ritual 

of coming home to the Mother. 

It was a very sweet ritual, one of my favorites 

that I facilitated with Katja. These gatherings grew 

to over one hundred participants, quite a thing

to hold, and a wonderful experience. 

Dancing in the summer...

Last summer, for the first time in 10 years, I decided 

to stay here at RavenWood to celebrate solstice. 

It was a hard decision, some scheduling things 

contributed to my choice and also the need to 

create smaller, less complex and more intimate 

ritual space. My time facilitating at Stonehenge was such 

an amazing ego boost - everyone would bow down to us and 

rave about the shrines, our singing, our facilitation. 

So, in giving up this ritual, 

I gave up a big bit of ego boosting for the year! 

But it felt and feels important to me to honor 

the profound healing I receive in this gentle forest of RavenWood. 

There are no huge views, no amazing standing stones, 

no throngs of revelers to celebrate with wild abandon - 

the gifts here are the simple beauty of moss covered stones, 

humble forest flowers, a gathering of red mushrooms amongst twigs. 

It is a quiet, introspective forest that gathers me in and asks 

me to be myself beyond the masks and roles of the 

world beyond. I feel myself woven into the web of all life as 

I witness the flow of seasons and the creatures living their lives, 

sharing the land.It is a place I feel sometimes more owl, 

tree or bear than human. I wander for hours in the forest 

and perch on logs listening to stories sung 

by frogs and held in the stones, not knowing until I move 

alongthat a raven was perched in a nearby tree, watching. 

afternoon sunlight on just one trunk

Our gathering tonight will be intimate, calling on deep 

truths - spoken, sung, danced - shared and witnessed around the fire, 

reflecting the quiet magic of the forest here. We will be blessed 

with luna moths and owls, bobcats and coyotes, with wind in 

hemlocks and a growing crescent moon - though we might see only

the beauty of ourselves reflected in the eyes of another, speaking a 

prayer into the fire....