Matter and Mysticism at Sally Eckert Art Space

I have been a visionary story teller all my life. I have been drawing, painting, making stuff from small-scale paintings to huge murals to record life’s journeys. I have profound dreams and meditations, showing me images about transformation and growth. I believe a painting can hold an individual lesson for each person to experience. It can help guide a person to a new place of understanding. As an artist you hope for the ability to bring a little joy and a new perspective to the person who passes by your work. I graduated from Parsons School of Design with a B.F.A in Environmental Design in 1989. Later I went to Spain and Vienna to study the Dutch Master’s egg tempera technique. I have been painting the West and the beauty of the rocks since I moved to Colorado in 1992. I own and operate my studio art space in North Boulder at the Holiday Neighborhood.

Like many in our society, I once moved about in such a hurried way that touching the beauty and current of life remained just out of reach. Five years ago, I experienced a bereavement which brought me to my knees. In the time that followed, a transformation began. My eyes saw the tiniest of objects and my hands placed them in patterns that spoke to me about my experiences. Stones, broken glass, bullet casings, wood, feathers, bones, beads and many other objects took shape in ways that mirrored my inner world. Before, I had seen those very same objects but in a hurried, harried way. Now, with this experience of death, my vision has been sharpened but time has slowed enough to allow to touch the current of life and beauty that was always just out of reach. My art recognizes and highlights a tension in the disparate value our collective places on broken, mundane, and discarded objects. The broken jewelry and glass, the fractured toys, the bolts and nails, feathers, stones and beads are things that we look past every day or perceive them as trash. I gathered these items and started to arrange them in patterns that mirrored my inner world, simultaneously releasing the need to qualify and categorize these newfound objects or my life experiences as either good or bad. I think about our life experiences in the same way, that we categorize our experiences into good or bad. Recovery teaches us that an experience is just what happens, and that we can stay in peace by staying in present experience. Each piece of art tells a part of my story which has had many aspects that others might consider to be harrowing. Blessed with resilience, what brings meaning to me is the idea that I might share meaning with others. “Why?” is the existential question that plagues those that have experienced trauma or tragedy, but my work sidesteps that inquiry. Despite not knowing why, I chose to communicate through art the idea that beauty permeates all we do and experience. When we experience the reciprocity of artistic expression together, we can rest in the moment of present shared experience.