RavenCircle Creations

RAVENCIRCLE CREATIONS

Donald J Voss Jr

Toltec Artist

*** Annoucement: Please join us for Bellvue Daze on August 30th 2009. We will be part of the Bellvue Store Map. Come up to Bellvue CO and then visit our studio. We are at 2704 N CR 23, Bellvue CO. Art, prints and much more will be showing then. See you there! Thanks, Don

Welcome to my artistic pages. Most of my writing and ideas are migrating to my new blog at http://aruntabear.wordpress.com/ . This area is being dedicated to the art itself. Hope everyone enjoys the work. By way of introduction... Toltec is the concept that I have adopted for my work. First and foremost because the Toltecs were considered ancient builders and spiritual people. They were in Mexico and an old culture at the time of the Mayans. They are known for large statues with human faces that walk around at night. But more to the point, the word has been adopted by spiritual people to mean an artist of spirituality and freedom. It is through this term that I invest my creative communication of my work into the world. But definitions always fall short of the actual....

I enjoy painting the most. My favorite medium is ink on paper, though I have great connection to acrylics. The very act of creating a mark on paper has always excited me. From that, I grew to love paper making... and then print making. Copper etching printed intaglio style (print the groove) are a feature of my work's expression. Then along the road came book creation. The act of creating images in a group, series and sequencing ideas electrified my imagination. From there is was a small leap into "book arts". I have grown to enjoy that form the most because I can mix and match all aspect of ink, writing, image, message and meaning, especially symbolic meanings wrapped up in story.

Thanks to my beautiful other half, wife, and life mate, here is an overview of the work on the pages to follow:

CREATION - an artist's statement

Any act of creation begins with an act of destruction. To modify the world, to beautify we must risk to destroy it. As we take responsibility for these acts we come to know the effects of our creations. We are free to move in any direction we choose. To balance this with this beauty the necessities of the earth, our mother, some acts must be abandoned and others discovered to walk in a better way on her and with each other. Thus the artist journies within as they journey without. They become the art of inner and outer vision through the act of creation. Art is the courage to share this journey with others, to let the work tell the story and to be open

BOOKS

The archology of knowledge...

Books are a record of an event, a story of a time, an understanding of knowledge, a passing down and to each other the thoughts that are in the mind of the creator. Books record, but more than that, books change the fundamental structure of awareness by their being read and viewed. They can sit for many years, like Plato, lost to generations until discovered again. They are at all times, a crack in the awareness of the world, a view into the times which they were made or a look into the depths of the universal experience of being human. Books are sacred objects, reveared for their ability to translate us out of one state and into another. Books are structures of paper, paint, thread and more which can be carried from one place to another. Books are art off-the-wall, held in the hand, savored in the heart/mind within the intimacy of the viewer. Books are doorways of perceptions, windows to worlds we never knew possible.

Crafting a book is working in series and sequence with bits of knowledge and experience. The map the movement of awareness as it unfolds in time. The books I love are about mapping that awareness. The map may be just that, a journey into territory never before seen. It may be a chart, a graph of knowledge, like mandalas. The book may be a story of ceremony or a holy object of awareness. These arcane items are often difficult to read. I enjoy sharing the experience of being in and with a book. The story is written in the perception of the mind of the viewer. Yes, there is a story for me, but what interests me more is illuminating a story that I never thought possible with the elements of the stories unfolding in the hands of the viewer. The characters, writing, colors, symbols and structure are a hint as to what the meaning is. But it is not fixed, it is fluid. Fixed stories bore me. Rather, ever-unfolding stories that can be read a million times in a thousand ways always engage me. This energy keeps me putting pen and brush to paper, sewing bindings, gluing boards and placing these relics of our times out there in the world.

My wife and I live a life of wonderous beauty in Colorado. We are gathering people of like mind and creation together to share in the sacred pathway we call humans being. Please feel free to check out our other connections on the websites below. And thank you for taking the time to share in the mystery we know as undefinable beauty and wonder. Feel free to contact me at djvoss@lpbroadband.com at any time. Conversations about awareness and art are always invited.

Also see www.ravencircle.com and www.ravencircle.org

Art for openning doorways of perception