INTRODUCTION TO PORTFOLIO            

There is something about a numinous experience that defies explanation. Perhaps this is because inherent within the numinous experience is an encounter with Other, and each such encounter lacks a common point of reference. How then, can one give voice to an experience that is so private and so interior, where words alone cannot begin to explain the mystery of what has occurred? Yet as its witness, one knows without a shadow of a doubt that they’ve just encountered the unseeable. How can one illuminate the God that dances within them, and how can this experience be shared?

Rumi, the 13th century mystic, shared his numinous experiences through poetry. His poetic language, full of metaphors and expansive images, opened up the world within his imagination; and as we visit this world through his words we also come to know places that were before unknown vistas. I, too, have had numinous encounters, most frequently when I am alone in nature or while I am transported while painting. This portfolio contains the images of one such experience, expressed in my personal poetics–my visual voice–in my paintings of the Hebrew Letters, and in the words–the prayer poems–that emerged from these encounters. 

I began working with the alphabetic material in 1999. This encounter with the Hebrew Letters began an odyssey that would bring ecstatic wonder and numinous encounters, and would take me five years to complete. When I began to dive into the Hebrew alphabet, I quickly came to more fully realize the importance of alphabetic forms within the experience and understanding of divine energy, it felt similar to prior experiences I had had while painting–the sense that the energy of the Letter and the elemental manifestations of the spirit are one in the same. 
  
As an artist I understood the potency of these moments. When the Divine touches us, no matter what form it takes, it is difficult to remain inactive and inert. The natural reaction to such an encounter is to respond in a tangible form. As a visual artist this most often occurs in creating an artwork that involves working in a trance-like state, where the act of creating is perceived as sacramental. Indeed, for me, the manifested form of such encounters is sacred.

From the beginning the Letters were very insistent; they were pressing on me from all directions to get started, and so I immediately opened myself to them. As the painting of the first Letter, Aleph, emerged, I began to hear words. Not certain what was happening–I grabbed a sheet of paper and quickly wrote down what I heard. I wrote without seeing, my hand moving as swiftly as it could. I was in an ecstatic state, quite unable to move from my chair. I was filled with a feeling of peacefulness and fulfillment, as I become aware that the Letter was alive within me! In this state of reverie I sensed a deep wisdom within my heart, a wisdom we all share, emerging through the Letter and the words it spoke. These words formed themselves into what I now refer to as prayer poems, and they accompany each painted Letter.

Although words alone can’t adequately touch upon what passed through me as I encountered the Letters; perhaps the valences in paint and the words that came forth are closer to giving voice to these numinous encounters. For me this experience of revelation was, and continues to be, an intense spiritual connection; for even now when viewing the Letters, I reconnect with the afforded revealing moments, when everything appears clear, and I once again both sense and embrace the connections and patterns within life. In the final analysis, it is as if my life experiences, energies, and intuitions were the media used to illuminate the Letters; or possibly it was the act of finding the Letters that illuminated my life experiences. In reflection, I imagine what has been revealed in my ecstatic visions and numinous encounters can once again be personally experienced within each individual as they sit in reflection and meditation in the presence of each Letter.

This limited-edition portfolio contains 22 exquisitely detailed and carefully hand-rendered reproductions of my original luminous watercolors of the Hebrew alphabet and their accompanying prayer poems. All the images are giclée prints of the highest quality using pigment based archival inks. The alphabet paintings, each measuring 5” x 5”, are printed on 10.5”x 7.5” Somerset paper made at St. Cuthbert’s Mill of England. The illuminated prayer poems measure 10.5” x 15”, and are printed on Zerkall Book, a European mould-made paper. These images are invitations to open your imagination and heart; listen intently and look into each of the Letters as they weave stories made just for you.

Copyright © Elizabeth Fergus-Jean 2008-10. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008-10 Art and Psyche Press. All Rights Reserved.
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