Letter to Myself, mixed media, 24"x24"
The idea for this series developed from a couple of places. I have always loved clotheslines and often put them in my paintings. Then last year my husband did a trek in Nepal and came home with some Tibetan prayer flags that he hung from our deck. They looked beautiful waving in the breeze and I found myself wondering what the words on them meant. I began to think about what my own prayer flags might look like and what words would be on them.
I decided to do some prayer flag paintings. I soon found that my strings of flags often looked like clotheslines, so I started to do this on purpose. I interspersed flags with the laundry on the line and sometimes put writing on the clothes.
The flags and clothes may take center stage or may be part of a larger landscape. Sometimes there are cats or birds on the lines. In one painting, Illumination of Necessity, the flags are symbolic images of what is being “prayed” for: a home, clothing, and light.
Illumination of Necessity, mixed media, 24"x24"
Many of the flags have words on them. These words aren’t meant to be legible. They are bits and pieces of thoughts, poems, song lyrics, and other things that are important to me. They are written directly into the paint or onto collage papers that are then glued into the painting.
Personal Prayer Flags, mixed media, 19"x24"
A selection of my new series of paintings, Personal Prayer Flags, will be on display at Arts Alive! in La Conner WA, November 3-5. I’ll be at the opening on Friday November 3rd from 5:00 - 9:00.
To see more of these paintings: http://www.jacquibeck.com/personal-prayer-flags/