Betony Coons – Gray Sparrow
We recently wrote about Betony Coons’ original artwork and mentioned that we would soon be selling her mini-paintings on the site. Well that time has come and we are very happy to welcome her to our group of resident artists. Here are a few words that she had to share about her work:
There are two basic themes that consistently appear in my work. The first is the image of a bird. To me, images of flight and weightlessness represent the idea of a soul and our spiritual existence. It is the part of ourselves that longs for the freedom of an immense open sky. Emily Dickinson describes the symbolism of a bird perfectly in her poem “Hope.”
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all…
Have you ever held a small bird in your hands? They are disturbingly light. It is a wonder that something so delicate could survive wind and rain, coming out of the most violent storms unhindered. The birds in my paintings represent hope.
As well as birds, another reoccurring theme in my work is the human skeleton. The skeleton is earthy. Bones are the portion of us that lasts the longest. After our flesh is long gone, the skeleton remains. These connect with the idea of solidity, of being anchored to this earth. I connect with the skeleton because it represents the everyman. A skeleton has no skin color, no face, it is the structure and support within all of us. For another poetic reference, I connect with T.S. Eliot’s descriptions of the bones in his poem Ash Wednesday:
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) …
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions…
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose…”
My paintings utilize a build-up of mixed media elements. I use found items to contribute or add structure to my pieces – old windows, sticks, feathers, scraps of wood. Using these natural materials connects me with the physical act of creating, showcasing objects and old papers that have stories intertwined into them. These are not museum artworks, not stiff and cold paintings of landscapes that sit in gold plated frames. They are pieces of life collected that, when reassembled, struggle with ideas of human existence.
This connection with stories continues within my paintings themselves. Rather than depicting realistic scenes, my works have an illustrative narrative sense. I use the images to tell a story or at least to give glimpses into one.
Here are a few pieces that we just added to the store. Please check the artwork section to see all current listings from her as most of her pieces are one of a kind and may change often.
Tags: Art, betony coons, birds, paintings, skeletons
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