Crescent Moon Bear

Collaboration with Cindy Bilotti
Oil on Canvas, 40"x90" triptych, $2600 plus shipping
If you are interested in purchasing this painting please
email me at katherine@katherinetreffinger.com

Now...where was I? No, really, I am already tired of
this story. So briefly the rescue team showed up, pumped
me full of pain meds, put me on the back of a ATV flatbed
and away we went, getting stuck on only one berm. I
was put in the ambulance and we bumped our way down
the wash boarded dirt road. Do not think for one moment
that the pain was stopped by the meds. I was a screamer
but not a whiner that day.

The situation did not rapidly change at the hospital. There
was the wait and then the process of figuring out how to
deal with a badly fractured and dislocated ankle with no
specialist on board. After seeing the xrays Kirby came in
and said "Honey, your skateboard is really busted!" About
2 hours into it I was put under and the ankle was put back
in place.

At this point I went home. Tuesday I saw the specialist and
Wednesday I had surgery. All this time I was on drugs and
my sleeping reality was becoming just as real as my waking.
The reality was vivid and yummy, a combination of Peter
Max, Salvador Dali, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I am off the drugs and on the mend and extremely grateful
for Kirby, my community and the excellent medical attention
I received out here in remote Eastern OR.

Red Shoes

Collaborative piece with Cindy Bilotti
Oil on Canvas, 40"x60" diptych $1600 plus shipping
If you are interested in purchasing this painting please
email me at katherine@katherinetreffinger.com

Okay,......so a week ago last Sunday I suggested to
my partner that he and I go for a walk....an innocent
enough desire. So we loaded the dogs into the car and
headed up toward the entrance to the wilderness area
outside of our town. We had gone about 3 or 4 miles
up a dirt road when we saw an old forestry road that is
now blocked by dirt berms. We decided to try that road,
as we never had, instead of continuing up to our original
destination.

It was a lovely road, as far as the views, with expansive
vistas of the valley and the craggy side of the top of the
mountain. The road itself was a drag because we had to
walk over many berms of loose dirt. They really wanted
to keep out any kind of motor vehicles. Kirby kept walking
ahead of me, the dogs with him and I found myself irritated.
What if a cougar appeared (there are many) or I fell? And
talk about instant manifestation....kaboom I fell coming down
the steep side of a berm. Aren't I powerful? I caught the side
of my foot and slipped sideways, dislocating my ankle. That
much I knew immediately as I lay screaming on the ground
I looked down and saw that my foot was not on the ankle
and both were headed in separate directions. If I had not
already been screaming with pain I would have started then.
Kirby was not very far ahead so he was with me immediately
saw my ankle and called on the cell 911,Thank you God we
were in easy cell phone range!

As I lay in a bed of rock I had two thoughts. It was going to
take some time for the rescue people to get here, and, that if
I spent all that time focused on the pain I was going to be very
miserable. I then said God this would be a REALLY good time
for miracle. That being said I started to pay attention to my
breath as opposed to the pain and was actually somewhat
peaceful for the approximate 40 minutes it took for the team
to get there. I did think how the heck are they going to get me
back with all those berms?

To be continued........

Manawee

Oil on canvas, 36x48, Collection of Cindy Bilotti
Painted collaboratively by Cindy Bilotti and Katherine
Treffinger

Robyn Gordon (Artpropelled) responded to my 'Crow
Speaks' drawing by saying "Crow speaks to me and I
love it....a lot! Please write about your step into a new
way of expressing yourself. It reminds me of some of
the work in that amazing collaboration you did with
Cindy Bilotti."

I promised her that I would post a response. So let me try.
First let me say it was never, ever my intention to paint
abstractly. It just happened and took on a life of it's own.
At any point in my process of developing as an artist if you
were to ask me my life purpose I would respond by saying
that I was here to be a modern myth maker. I started
painting late in life and everything else in my life since 1980
has taken me in the direction of that purpose. Yet here I am
painting abstractly. Go figure.

It is my intention to move into a more story telling mode,
bringing together my figurative and abstract work. I want
to speak of the mystery, of the depths, the symbolic, of the
dream reality, but I don't want to speak directly. When Cindy
and I worked together we read a Fairy Tale and let it inform
the painting as opposed to painting the Fairy Tale. That is
what I want to do, without reading the Fairy Tale. Let the
story come to the painting and inform it. When I did 'Crow
Speaks' I let the images, the color, the strokes, the marks
come through impulse. I want to speak that language, the
language of impulse, intuition, a language beyond the
cognitive, yet something that is deeply understood. It is a
daunting task for me. I have tried and failed more than I
have succeeded. But the time is here and I am going to try
to follow the call.

I hope this answers you question Robyn.

Ugly Duckling I

Oil on canvas 48x36 Collection of artist
Collaboration with Cindy Bilotti (and her Flickr)

I am going to talk a little astrology today. Be warned I know
very little about it. This evening Mercury the planet of
communication is going retrograde.

"When a planet is in retrograde, it appears to be moving
backwards in the sky when viewed from earth. Of course it
is not actually moving backwards, but the illusion of
backward motion is created due to the differing speeds of
planetary orbits around the sun."
www.mercuryretrograde.wordpress.com

What I have learned about it is that when it is retrograde
we are advised to do things that start with re. Rework,
rewrite, rethink well you catch my drift.

I can already feel this movement in my own life as I
rethink my expression in art. What is my next step,
what is it I want to express, what is my true artistic
voice? I know the answers are continually evolving,
but here I am again. In search of the answers to this
I find myself going to this piece Cindy and I collaborated
on which is the painting I kept in my own collection.
It is speaking to me and wants to inform me, to guide me.
I am listening.