Rock and roll in the Sixties affected my life in a deep way. My girlfriend's father owned a music store, Drapers Music Center, in Palo Alto. He sold guitars to famous musicians. The whole flavor of the music and art around that time influenced me. The culture of the Haight-Ashbury was so vibrant. I painted portraits of rock stars like Mick Jagger and did paintings inspired by songs such as Bob Dylan's "Joker Man Dance." More recently I was commissioned to do a portrait of Jerry Garcia and I listened to tapes of his music as I painted. Even though I grew up around the Grateful Dead, I never really appreciate the beauty of their music until I painted that portrait.

These days I listen more to classical music and songs by people like Peter Gabriel, Bruce Cockburn and Sting. I think I've replaced the music scene with nature. The land speaks to me. I lived in a house under trees containing osprey nests. I love the wildlife: the deer, the ravens, the foxes. There is a presence in nature, not just the animals, but the trees and plants. For me, sitting under a redwood tree is a mystical experience. If I didn't have a family I would probably be more eco-militant.

My soul is nourished by free-spiritedness. I hope this comes through in my paintings. I don't think I could be an artist without the ideas and music that have inspired my creations. I remember Joni Mitchell saying, "Inspiration is the best discipline." She also said that you never know where inspiration is going to come from. A big part of what made me want to paint was wanting to bring out the ancient traditions and the wisdom of women. I've always felt very strongly that women need to express themselves creatively and listen to their inner voice. We need to integrate more of the ancient wisdom into our psyches to balance the high-tech developments of the past hundred years. There is too much concentrated power, without the wisdom to use it. As mothers and nurturers, we women have a lot to say and our voices help create a balance of power.

I also found much of what I was searching for by studying the psyche. Early in life, I gained the identity of Wolf Woman. When I was thirteen, I got a German shepherd named Bruiser who stayed with me for fourteen years. In high school, since I always had this big dog with me, I was called Wolf Woman. One of the first shamanic images I made was a woman's face with a wolf head on top. I learned about connecting with the animal or nature side of myself by reading people like Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and Lynn Andrews. She was one of the first women I knew of who studied shamanism and voiced the ancient wisdom. Some Native Americans take offense at her and other white people who honor their traditions. They see this as ripping off their culture. I don't see it this way. I don't want to rip off a tradition. I want to honor what is there and try to learn from it. When I grew up, I didn't have any spiritual traditions. I am drawn to the direct connection to spirit that shamanism offers; rather than going through a priest or anyone else. Art was my way of connecting to the inner soul, before I ever even heard about shamanism. Like Joseph Campbell, I love to draw parallels between mythologies.

I study and garner strength from the works of spiritual masters like Neem Karoli Baba. I have also studied the Ramayana, a great Hindu story that centers around King Ram, Queen Sita and their devoted servant Hanuman, the Monkey King. To me, Hanuman is the ego at its highest level. Ram and Sita are like the yin and yang of the higher self. In this way, the ego serves the higher self.

My painting, "Kuan Yin Rides Again," in which Kuan Yin rides a horse, was inspired by a Vietnamese woman sage. She teaches that when your life works smoothly, the ego is like the horse and the higher self is the rider. But when your ego starts to control or push your higher self around, it's like carrying a horse around on your back. So I use spiritual teachings to help me and inspire me. When I am out of balance, it's usually due to an ego trip. When I meditate and my ego blends into the background, everything is okay.

Over the last couple of years I've been inspired by Angeles Arrien, a Basque woman. One of her apprentices, Nancy Feehan, lives here on Seaview Ridge, above Timber Cove, in Northern California. I've taken a couple of her year long group trainings. These lessons dovetail with my artwork. In the Basque tradition, they do a tobacco pouch ceremony once a year, putting things in it that symbolize what they want to get rid of and then toss it out. They do other things like thinking of all the ways you can hurt yourself, writing these on a knife and burying it. They also make a prayer stick wrapped with yarn of different colors. Green represents prosperity or abundance in nature, black represents the West and so forth. This stick is planted in the ground; it's like planting your prayers for a year. Another thing they do involves seven rocks: four on the bottom represent your grandparents, two above them are for your parents and the one on top is you. This provides a way of communicating with your ancestors. You can make offerings of food and water there. Doing this helps retrieve lost aspects of ourselves, our soul. The art I've done based on what I've learned from this group has been very nurturing.

People have offered to do past-life regressions with me but, at this point in life, this doesn't seem necessary. I like being here and now, letting the mystery be. My work has qualities of wildness and mystery. I believe our souls require that. In talking about God, you can only point, but you can't put your finger on it. We just have to be with the unknown. The meanings of my paintings are also unknown. They change for me over time. If you look at a painting in a room during the day, over the season, or over the years, it changes its character. An original piece of fine art does that. Sometimes I won't like a piece at first but then, with time, I'll learn to love it. It's similar to the relationships you have with people.

My painting "Buddha and the UFOs" didn't have any high mystical meaning to me when I painted it, but it does now. I did it ten years ago. Recently I was inspired by a book called Earth: The Pleiadian Keys To The Living Library. Bear and Company published it. It's a very interesting book about the relationship of the chakras to outer space. It relates to our cosmos and universe rather than just to our planet. This view makes our planet seem even more precious. Each piece of grass is like a huge library of information, mystery and wonder. The little things that people tend to take for granted are the same. That painting reaches beyond the smallness of our provincial mentality and religions, to a broader spectrum of truth.

My work is about introspection and bringing inner treasures outside. Going within is like the bear entering its cave. I would like to set an example for people, to do that inner work in whatever way they can. For example, the Shabbat in the Jewish tradition, where you forget worldly affairs and just tend to God. That's what art and creativity are to me: tending to the inner spiritual needs. Wherever that takes you, it'll be fine, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. I like to keep in mind the Hippocratic law of "first, do no harm" The Dali Lama says to treat all sentient beings like your mother. If it weren't for the kindness of the people who raised you, you wouldn't have made it here. So I try to be kind to others, meanwhile being loving, trusting and respecting of myself. Kindness and creativity go hand-in-hand. They both require nurturing the spirit. Kindness comes from inner strength and compassion. Creativity, is nothing less than making light the deepest darkest recesses of the psyche. Both are innate in us all. With them there is unlimited potential.

Be At Peace and Many Blessings To You

-Suzanne deVeuve-
December 2006

Sojourn Magazine
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Northern California Women Writers and Artists