Dreamtime Hallelujah: Welcome to my soul, the beginning of my story using words and images

DREAMTIME HALLELUJAH. The beginning of a sequential art story using words. (all art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for being an artist! Hallelujah for supportive friends and fellow artists who encourage me to grow. My journey is rich with fellow sojourners asking me to expand.

These are some of their urgings:

Where do you want to go?

What is your story?

Try animation!

Try sequential art!

From these verbal interactions, I understood the overall request to develop a story employing these figures—Mother Mystery, Hallelujah Truth, Mother Alligator, and Wandjina—from my psyche.The best kind of urging to write a story granted me the permission to begin “wherever” with “whatever” (thank you Maggie Davis).

As you know, in my creative daily practice, I repeat the mantra: Not good. Not bad. Just is. So let’s get started with the beginning...

1: The Beginning

Mother awakens

welcoming the river

under the river

honoring the moisture

forming the cloud,

hoisting the anguish

of the flowers.

As I breathe,

breath to breath

laboring petal to petal

to petal to petal

you listen, uncertain

of your story

and you bite

into mine, tear

it with your

teeth, demanding the

grit beneath BEAUTY.

2: Self One

Before TIME, before

your perception of

sunlight flowing from

my head, I

held you swaddled

in my fist.

I drank spit

from the pollinators

and my toes

covered in honey

danced the incremental

steps of BEING.

3: Self Two

Singing you into

teeth, tooth by

tooth, you are

the good mother

cradling me gently

in your jaws,

tongue wet I

dream red dust

wind blowing grit

severing divine intimacy

storm is birth

to dreamtime infinity

4. Self Three

You are ignorant.

That is the beginning of telling the story of my Dreamtime Hallelujah. Welcome to my soul. SOUL BLOG with me at Coffee with Hallelujah!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:  Big thanks to Women’s Caucus for Arts of Georgia (WCAGA), which brought me into close proximity with approximately 20 artists during the drawing marathon, “Draw 4 Days.” (see this blog, blog, blog for starters)

During this time, I was given numerous opportunities to tell “my story” connected to my images to accomplished artists who were very supportive of my creative process as they listened. I especially want to acknowledge five WCAGA artists: 1) Maggie Davis, who invited me into an in-depth conversation about the future of my work. 2) Loretta Paraguassu, whose playfulness as expressed in her being and her art, wants to collaborate on an animated film with me(What an exciting idea!). 3) Anita Stewart, who dug deep and wanted to know specifics about my images and share her experiences about rock art and other cultures. 4) Marie Weaver, who expressed appreciation for my compositions and encouraged me to explore expanding the imagery I’m currently using. 5) Callahan Pope McDonough, whose high energy and creativity, kept me engaged in my artmaking during the marathon in addition to her constant encouragement of the value of me work.

I would also like to thank Trish Weaver, an active participant in my Facebook Group, The Daily Creative Practice (join us), who is such a fabulous story teller both through images and words. She has kept asking for my story in words.  Let’s see what I might do Trish!

And thank you to the Decatur Book Festival 2014 that had a “Graphic Lit” section and heard the expression, sequential art, for the first time.