"Salamander - A Second Life" oil on canvas by Pamela Sukhum

Do you ever feel like you are leaving one life behind and starting a new one?  

I have been feeling this way for the past several months.  

I found the salamander pictured to the side in Northern Minnesota this past fall season.  I hadn’t held one of these since I was a kid.  It was perfect timing to encounter him at this time for what he represented.

Like frogs, salamanders are amphibians, which in Latin means “double life.” Salamanders are born in water, and in their “second life” live on land.  Though Salamander is primarily a creature of water, in magical traditions it relates to the element of fire, an agent of transformation. 

When I feel the uncertainty and grit of making a new life for myself, I am helped by this creature — if he can make it into a second life, so can I. 

MY SECRET BELOVED

sent me a secret message

“give me your soul

give me your life

wander like a drifter

go on a journey

walk into this fire with grace

be like a salamander

come into our source of flame

fire transmutes to a rose garden

don’t you know that my thorn

is better than the queen of roses

don’t you know my heresy

is the essence of spirituality

then surrender your spirit

surrender your life”

oh God i know

a garden is better than a cage

i know a palace

is better than a ruin

but i’m that owl in this world

who loves to live in the ruins of love

i may be that poor wandering soul

but watch all the aspiration and light

watch the glow of God

reflecting from my face

-Hafiz

To a frog that’s never left his pond the ocean seems like a gamble.
Look what he’s giving up: security, mastery of his world, recognition!
The ocean frog just shakes his head. “I can’t really explain what it’s like where I live, but someday I’ll take you there.”

-Rumi

"What the Ocean Frog Saw" - detail shot from upcoming book of visual poetry by Pamela Sukhum

"What the Ocean Frog Saw" - plate #2 from upcoming book of visual poetry by Pamela Sukhum

This summer I have been delighted to create two separated commissioned paintings where the collectors (and I) had no idea what the final imagery would be. In each case the painting would be created as an unfolding mystery for the patron with the intention being that the painting would be a visual meditation, contemplation, and/or prayer for that individual.

I was honored to be allowed into the lives of these individuals to create a piece that would be solely (and soul-filled) for them. To embark on this journey together we agreed that each person would not know what their piece would look like or see it until it arrived on their doorstep.

This first completed piece titled “Heartspace” is dedicated to Mimi Klein of New York, New York.

She wrote me in a letter that she would “love to be healed of the pain I have been feeling from years of verbal and emotional abuse and control. I would love to turn my hurt into knowledge, wisdom and healing that will then help other women wake up to their own amazing power, and love themselves enough to not tolerate disrespect cruelty and abuse and to be able to provide them concrete tools and processes to step away and step into their own authentic soul filled lives.” *

I hope that this painting can, in some way, remind her of her own courageous journey of strengthening and healing her own heart so that she can share that with others. I thank Mimi for this honor of sharing “Heartspace” with her.

This is a blessing by the late John O’Donohue that I would love to dedicate to Mimi:

“As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, may your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills. When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance, may your imagination continue to evoke horizons.”

*full permission was given by Mimi Klein to share her words directly with you

...in her own words....

New Hemispheres: Day2 - Solitude - Detail Shot

New Hemispheres: Day 2 - Detail Location

I often go into a feeling of deep solitude and isolation when I work on paintings from this series. My phone seems to go dead and my outer life becomes very quiet. I often feel like I am forgotten or don’t quite exist in the world. I start to feel a quiet longing, but for what? This is a longing that cannot be filled by my being busy, popular, acquiring more material things, or eating more food or drink no matter how hard I try. I often try to avoid this loneliness until I remember the poem that I recited over the phone to a dear friend last year when she was going through a period of feeling extreme isolation and lonliness….

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

by Shams al-Din Hafiz

I was also reminded of this what Don Jose Rios (a revered Huichol Indian shaman, who visited the U.S. at the age of 106) said:

In my eighty years of training I have suffered much. Many times have I gone into the mountains alone. But you have to do this. For it is not I who can teach you the ways of the gods. Such things are learned only by yourself, only in solitude.

DAY 1: Painting still not detailed and unclear
This is a beautiful poem, by Hafiz, that inspired the initiation of this piece. As you can see, there is not detail in the piece yet, just broad brushstrokes. The piece will become more detailed and clear as its story unfolds but you can see that the “spirit” and “essence” of the piece is already there…..ready to come more clearly into physical form….

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.

From: ‘The Subject Tonight is Love’
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

The full online gallery of the “Splendid Darkness” series.

“I open myself to all experience as a path to remembering divinity.” – PS

Painting in the western tradition has more than once been likened to poetry – an apt comparison for the art of Pamela Sukhum, whose work is intimate, decisive, gentle and forceful: a poetical painting in the mood of lyric.

A pictorial lyricism moreover that is exceptional in seamlessly expressing transpersonal waves of being: radiant transparencies and opacities of space and form conducting kosmic flows of love.

The famous feminist dictum that the “personal is the political” might be refigured with reference to this art as the personal is the transpersonal – not the personal as step to the transpersonal (the latter merely tolerating the former); but an individuation of painterly expression that marries and celebrates both – artistic creations of a Unique Self.

The nature-based imagery of these paintings is allusive — symbolic in the mystical sense of the term: resounding in silence, replete with significance; aesthetic engagement moved to deeper modes of comprehension.

Sukhum’s artworks are like waking dreams disclosing the never before having been seen.
Songs of a knowing silence, visual lyrics of shining care.

-Michael Schwartz
Integral Life Art Gallery

To view Pamela Sukhum’s complete profile on Integral Life please visit:
http://integrallife.com/node/92090

“Sunburst”
Available in Sizes:
24″ x 24″ | 36″ x 36″
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“Sad soul, take comfort nor forget, The sunrise never failed us yet.”
-Celia Laighton Thaxter

Sunburst celebrates the beautiful sunrise over Kauai and sitting along Poipu’s coastline, bathed in that sunlight, at the start of a new day.
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Limited Edition prints are hand-embellished by the artist, resulting in each piece being truly individual and unique.  To inquire please visit:  www.infinitevisionart.com/contact/ or Email: info@infinitevisionart.com

Adventure is no stranger to Pamela.  Constantly inspired by the natural world, Pamela recently traveled to the Hawaiian Islands to launch her first National Arts and Parks Tour, a recent project aimed at raising awareness on the importance of protecting and preserving our environment by celebrating the beauty and spirit of nature through art.

As she explored the great volcanoes of Hawaii National Park, hiked Kauai’s Na Pali coastline, and swam in the sacred pools of O’heo Gulch, nature became an endless source of inspiration for her most recent series entitled Waves of Change.

These pieces are a reminder that life is always changing.  By having a willingness to adapt to new ways of life, change can be seen as an opportunity for growth and new adventures, keeping our souls and spirits alive.

In 2011, Pamela plans to continue the National Arts and Parks Tour through artist in residence programs, grants and alternative funding.  By sharing her love and appreciation of the natural world through art, Pamela hopes that others will become inspired by our nation’s great natural beauty and its importance in our lives.

More to come on Pamela’s new series and the National Arts and Parks Tour project…

If you are interested in signing up for our newsletter, please visit our website: http://www.infinitevisionart.com/contact/

I wake up in the middle of the ocean…nothing in sight…floating…

Little by little the waves around me become more tumultuous…the ocean’s surface dipping in and out of my view…

Sensing myself being pulled in numerous directions I am unable to maintain a grip… I am lost, scared, and anxious…alone.

…silence…the waves are beginning to calm…I am no longer alone…

Flashes of color begin to emanate beneath the ocean’s surface…there is a figure awaiting me in the distance… its colors, vibrant as glistening koi fish, invite me to accept its approaching presence…

Too large to see it in its entirety, I am overcome by a deep sense of curiosity as it undulates towards me… feelings of uncertainty begin to build within me…as I allow them to surface…I am euphoric.

I awoke inspired by a new sense of self.  To me, this dream symbolized the currents of life, the need to accept the uncertainty that waits in our future, building within us.  As we allow these feelings to surface we are able to evolve, become inspired, and discover new paths in life.

48” x 36” | Oil on canvas