RavenCircle Creations

Art for openning doorways of perception

RAVENCIRCLE  CREATIONS

 Donald J Voss Jr

Toltec Artist

Toltec Art is art founded on the exploration of creation itself.  Toltecatl is an ancient term meaning builder or creator.  When the term was used it referred to a people that came before.  A people that knew things and the evidence of which can be found in their artworks, buildings and monuments.  The enduring quality of which is the mystery of how they were built or made.  We wander through the ancient works and sense that creativity at the same time sit in awe and wonder at the methods and the techniques that the authors of these works used to create their world.  We only see a slice, the latent evidence, of a wondrous world view and experiences. 

Any story in works of art is like walking on the tip of the iceberg.  The presentation of the images, colors, form, structure and production is but the thing the viewer sees.  The process, the machinations which the artist went through are a mystery to the viewer.  So too with the work that I enjoy doing the most, it is a mystery even to me.  Paper and ink being my favorites offer the best medium to express the mystery of unfolding and enfolding creation in art.  The medium is water.  Water and pigments interact with each other based on a host of uncontrollable elemental features.  The temperature, lighting, humidity, pigment load, and brush or spray can all impact in wonderous ways the effects that arrise on the paper.  Thus watercolor has been called the most difficult medium.  The artist can never be completely attached to his vision.  His vision must flow like the water in a river, around the impediments to creation.  These impediments and challenges cause necessary solutions to be found mid way through the journey of creation.  Thus the initial vision is never locked in a second and produced in the next.  Time tells the story in the walk and wonder of the interactions. 

Books too provide this type of exploration of awareness and being.  They are longer, sequenced objects which can reveal much in the creation and much more in the reading.  These stories point back, like a mirror, to the reaches within our being that wonder about creation all the time.  Books move forward in time, and backwards in depth.  The dynamic tension of the turning page is like leaning over a cliff with barely a rope to hold on to.  Yet the leap is all that is called for. 

Intaglio etching prints are the essence of repetitive imperminence.  The series and sequences of copper plates that I have developed always hold the same two elements within.  The first is the carefully crafted lines and images, the second is the magical mystery of chemicals wandering across the plate.  This tension has developed into numerous plates both small and large which has build up a library or alphabet of possibilities.  These possibilities of interactions and connections facinate me all the time.  I use them to map this process of flowing through the river of life. 

Toltec artists are many and different.  But the tie that binds us together is the wonder and awe with which we look at creation.  We are propelled to act by a drive we can only call the infinite.  We connect with the terrifying to transform the ordinary in a wandering through awareness and being. 

Please enjoy the art you see here.  And thank you for your being interprets the world in a wonder that can only be experienced and shared. 

Below is a great video introduction of my work.  The video was developed by my wife who designs websites.   

CREATION - an artist's statement

Any act of creation begins with an act of destruction.  To modify the world, to create, we must risk to destroy.  As  responsibility is taken for these acts, we come to know the effects of our actions on creation.  We can become free to move in any direction as long as we take responsibility for the world we are changing.  In balance with this beauty are the necessities of the earth, our mother. Some actions must be abandoned while others probed for deeper balance as we walk in a better way with her and each other.  This is the beauty way, a walk of creative partnership with all of life.  Thus the artist journeys within as we journey without.  We become the art of inner and outer vision through our acts of creation.  Art is the courage to share this journey with others, to let the work tell the story and to be open to the unfolding expereinces which build our world.

My wife and I live a life of wonderous beauty in Northern Colorado.  We are gathering people of like mind and creativity together to share in the sacred pathway we call being human.  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.

I make my living selling the work that is listed here.  Please feel free to contact me for further information on these works.

 Also see http://toltecartist.wordpress.com/ and www.ravencircle.org