“In my work, I look for moments that transcend time and the personal and touch the universal. My paintings are about the experience of such moments, when the ego steps aside and we just ARE, when the fabric of ‘reality’ is drawn back to reveal the true nature of things. “The stuff of life—your life—becomes the fodder for your art, intentionally or not. So that approach to life, that pressing desire to learn, to better understand myself (and the world outside) has helped to deepen my yoga practice. It is the constant relooking at the asanas, my experience of them from day to day, deconstructing and reconfiguring them as my body and understanding require: That is why I am an Iyengar Yoga practitioner and why the subject has held my interest for 25 years. There is always something new to discover, right within the confines of my own body, that incredible vehicle of the soul.”
—Melinda Morey, painter, Oakland, California
“As an artist, I once thought that abstraction and realism were simply the poles of a continuum, a way to identify what kind of art it is and produce it as such. Yoga’s influence has helped me see these things more as a circle containing no distinction between the abstract and the real and no particular set of reasons to make art other than to make art. Yoga has helped me see within my whole self, as a person, and therefore, as an artist.” — Jim Orvik, painter and woodworker, Bellingham, Washington
Shelter by Melinda Morey Photo: Melinda Morey
“For me, creativity and yoga as practice has become a model for
myself. The greatest return, however, is looking into the eyes of
understanding the singular richness of integration. As a visual
another and knowing that all of these attributes are carried
artist, musician, writer, cook, gardener, and yoga practitioner, I
inside each living being.”
have been gifted with a deeper understanding of meditation, full presence in the moment, and a continuing residence in
— Judy Orvik, glass artist, Bellingham, Washington
gratitude. This, of course, happens when I get out of the way of
Spawn I watch you from the rotting wooden bridge in this long anticipated season repeating your ritual swim against the current, Imagining yourself into a silted conception. Are you weary in your wisdom as your deepened scaly shades wash away in creation, leaving some new deposit of possibility? Your old softening bones float out to sea one small ripple at a time. —Judy Orvik Spawn II by Judy Orvik Photo: Jim Orvik Spring/Summer 2015 Yoga Samachar
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