In Fall 2020 and into the winter 2021, I turned to the cache of indigo dyed papers and fabrics I’d accumulated after years of growing and harvesting the plants in my garden.

I started making postcard sized collages which became a daily practice–the Sky Portal series.

Indigo did the heavy lifting in FRESH AIR, reducing the seismic shifts of the year to healing shades of blue-gray-green with a dose of golden-yellow. The powerful plant and the color it yields has been a guide for me in my art making, stilling my rattled nervous system and delivering me to the material world. Handling paper and fabric, no ideas, nothing but materials and growing awareness that I can trust them to guide me. 

They led to Sky Boat Song, as I navigated the landscape of my Scottish- Irish-English roots, the New Mexico sky and the paradox of living in the high desert southwest. Sky boat led to the water diviner and bees. A hive is filled with essential workers, all female, working for the good of the whole. The forked branch of the slingshot which appeared in drawings made in 2020, became the divining rod in Eye of the Spring.

Indigo suffruticosta is called ‘anil’ in India and the Middle East and is associated with medicinal power to clear the energy field. In Sanskrit, the name Anil means wind or air. From royal blue to military uniforms to blue jeans, indigo carries with it a history of labor and power, sorrow and mystery, and above all, to the air and water we all need to stay alive.