"PLANT and BEE MEDICINE" / 2024
"PLANT and BEE MEDICINE" DRESS
"PRINCESS of WANDS" / TAROT imagery.
"Plant and Bee Medicine" illustration / pen and ink drawing digitally colored
Without really knowing it had happened, the year of 2023 seemed to take every form of creative skill developed, and merge it all into energetic systems of overlapping oracles of intentional art. With the bee having led it from the beginning, she was now beckoning for the entirety of her essence, her environments, her work on the planet, her Queendom, to be equally expressed through the kind of mediums that humans use in their daily lives. The black and white illustration style can be silkscreened as one-color, while the artwork itself can powerfully transition into water-colored imagery. All of the 'Plant and Bee' artwork began to transition into a deck of tarot cards, and this project will tenderly develop during these next years.
The making of a dress has always been my most profound and deeply cathartic art form. The feminine, and now for the 'divine feminine'. With the ability to transition the artwork onto fabric, comes the opportunity to create infusing the symbolic oracle of, and in, it all. Immense focus of blending philosophies drawn in black and white, now expanded into hues of a million different spectrum possibilities, sewn into the ultimate of feminine expressions. Continuing my love of mirroring imperfections into balance, the dress is then photographed and digitally filtered into further creative experiences. Backing the dress imagery is a tapestry created from the "Owl Bee" artwork (see link / Illustration 2022)
The design goal for this dress was to create from a full print of the "Plant and Bee Medicine" artwork, without cutting into the design. Placing the leafy mandala design in such a way where the the bee is central in the skirting, followed by a network of the intertwining plant life, mushrooms, berries, and a portal of mycelium funghi merging into the side seams. Open spaces running down through the center of the piece, causing the compact detail at the sides, to become like an ethereal lace. A belt was created from a cream /red version of the fabric, with crossing ties that further express the concept of "tying it all together" with an essence of interconnectedness. The fabric was printed onto an organic cotton sateen. Not only is it an easy to wear casual dress, it can also be worn as a fine couture piece.
CHERI A ELLIS copyright 2015 / All Rights Reserved
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The Process ... "Plant and Bee Medicine" was created with pen and ink, drawn as a quarter of the design, and then mirrored both horizontally and vertically. Research is an integral part of the inspiration, and becomes part of the imagery during the development of the piece. The small triangular symbols represent air / water / fire / earth. The number 3 is known as the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom, and understanding. The trinity energies of / life, death, rebirth / beginning, middle, end / past, present, future / daughter, mother, crone. The lotus, a symbol of beauty, absolute purity, honesty, rebirth, self-regeneration, enlightenment. Themes that seemed to align with the intertwining networks of leaves, stems and mushrooms were string theory, fawn trauma response, vegas nerve, plant hallucinogens, neuroplasticity, salience network, photosynthesis. Symbols in the plant art represent the secret communication of the plant world, fractal philosophies that identify with our physical, emotional and spiritual existence on this planet.
THE PROCESS /
INTENTIONAL USE OF PSYCHEDELICS /
INTENTIONAL ARTWORK /
internalizing through the creative process
What is 'intentional artwork' ? Speaking through my personal experience as an artist that evolves through this process, for me it has involved creating from a place where I intentionally work to process an issue. As a young artist, I wasn't aware of this purpose, I created to self sooth. I created to find relief through what I experienced as self empowerment, but had no idea that was my intention. As these mechanisms matured, they unfolded into a deeper self awareness that became the foundation of my life journey as a self-taught artist. Because of this dynamic, I have never been motivated to pursue artistic evolution and success for the same reasons as most of my cultural environment either dictates, requires and/or defines as 'success'. My ultimate goal has always been to find the time to afford and pursue my creative dream, and that dream has always been based in self fulfillment through an internal soulful expansion. As in 'I want to make a beautiful coat', I began to create coats until I felt I had mastered the kind of coat I would love to wear. Coats are warming, protective, worn daily, worn year after year. My last coat was created from a remnant piece of deep red upholstery fabric from a store that went out of business. I lined the coat with a tapestry print of the "Orphic Egg Bee".
I use my creative process as a reward system. I use the creative process to gift myself. Ive established a ritual in my life that involves being able to start up a new creative passion after experiencing a crisis, hardship, or simply a very challenging time in my life. When the issue has been resolved and I'm back on my feet again, I initiate this new work by being able to afford the materials and the time to begin the journey. Virtually every medium I've explored was introduced in this manner.
The doll making began when I was child. Put aside during the next years, I then created my first doll as a young mother. From this point on the dolls took on a metaphysical quality in their development in my life. Doll making provides an immense ability to explore the internal world, the soulful self. I'm sure very cliche, but I could write a book about it! Using 'Azura Aceso' as an example, the doll imagery at the right: the doll was created in the color of sky blues, the intention was to initiate a throat chakra healing, my voice. 'Azure', the blue color of the throat chakra, and 'Aceso', the name of the Greek goddess of healing. The dresses are created from fabric printed with the artwork that is loaded with symbolism and intention. Either silk screened, or printed digitally, the dress has become the transformational platform to internalize the message. In the imagery here, the dress was created from the "Plant / Bee Medicine" illustration (a smaller version of the above dress) With the first decade of my life as a working artist having been a hat-maker, it has been a great delight to adorn the heads of the dolls with massive bounties of flora. Much of the velvet flowers were saved from my days in millinery. At some point I hope to make tiny headdresses for the dolls.
I CREATE INCOME FROM MY ARTWORK
In this aspect of my creative life I practice from a very serious place of intention. I create income from artwork that I feel can be shared in ways that are in alignment with the authentic purpose of my work. Here I use "how I feel" do decide how I price work, where I sell my work, and who I collaborate with. I make enough money to be able to keep developing my art, which in this lifetime has been a continuation of mediums that finally led to my ultimate life purpose. Its taken years to get here, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Years of using my art to heal, de-code, reset, to transmutate, to change my story, to replant my gut biome, to journey into my ancestral generational wounding with an intention to heal and rise above it. Does making money from my artwork cause me to lose the passion of my creativity? Absolutely not. The more I can sustain myself in a place of authentic creativity during the time in my days, the more I am able to access and stay internally connected. The more I feel connected to every little thing that happens in my life, the more deeply fulfilled I become. I am careful to balance half of my week with creating income with my work, and the other half with creating new work.
VICTORY / VI of WANDS tarot
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The current resurgence of psychedelic culture, backed now with astute, confirming research, is very much a part of the energetic influence of my creative work. Intentional use. Having experienced psychedelics in many different ways throughout my life, my understanding of plants that open our minds up into other perspectives, has been developed through curiosity, experimentation, pain, fear, expansion, vice, and now ultimately healing. I have much I could express about my personal experience with psychedelics, especially in these days of legalization, decriminalization. They are plants, and as a person who has grown and tended many a garden, I feel plants are here as a part of us. Plants clean our air, they feed and nourish our bodies, they inspire chemical reactions within us that have the ability to change the very nature of our existence. My current imagery depicts plants that interconnect the symbolic properties within the imagery. Color, perhaps my use of color is the most blatant element of the psychedelic culture expressed in my artwork. My application of color is a dynamic developed within me that causes me to explore and express through spectrum hues.
Azura Aceso / 'azure' blue, 'Aceso' the Greek goddess of healing / hand painted face
Doll dress created with fabric digitally printed with "Plant / Bee Medicine" imagery. Decorated with hand stitched East Indian trim and beading.
Azura Aceso / created to explore the throat chakra (sky blue) The body made from silk screened canvas printed with "Mushroom Bee" imagery. Legs made with fabric digitally printed with "Ayahuasca and Bee" artwork.
Digitally mirrored imagery.
I am currently moving my artwork into oracles. In this last year of 2023 I began to illustrate the black and white, pen and ink designs for a tarot deck. Because these original designs are edited into colors, or fully watercolored, I'll be leaving the final edits of all the artwork for the very end. The artwork will also be used to create back-round patterns, share symbols and cause the artwork to evolve alongside the process being described in the card itself. In the written part of the tarot deck there will be disclosures about the incredible synchronicities that often unfold when illustrating in such a way.
