Garden Gallery
 | Since my book is about stalking shapeshifting clouds, we thought we might hide Cliff’s stalking shapeshifting sculptures in our splendid garden. It’s one of the surprises in our married life that unbeknownst to each other, we were haunted by the same trauma clouds. As a writer I coped by organizing them into words, Cliff coped by molding them into metaphorical sculptures. |
After the murder of our daughter, we both encountered 15 stalking shapeshifting trauma clouds, but he is only going to display 6 of his sculptures, which we are calling the King David series. While I studied psychology – Cliff studied theology, so it should come as no surprise that he worked out his emotional trauma through one of the greatest heroes in the Bible.
The first sculpture Cliff made was of David stalking Bathsheba bathing in the privacy of her own courtyard. This sculpture was created during the trial when he realized Candace was being stalked. With horror, Cliff realized that his hero – the man after God’s own heart – had also stalked a woman and even killed her husband. Except that the sculpture doesn’t look at all like a king, it is a man’s body with a fox head, entitled Foxy David, with a telescope - a sly, dirty, stalking David.
And when Cliff started to understand the evil intentions exhibited during the trial, – out came King Saul – David’s mortal enemy. But this King Saul appears as a stalking Werewolf, right next to his Throne of Swords. The fierceness of the two sculptures is a little surprising when one realizes that the sculptor is truly a peace-loving Mennonite at heart.
I write about all of this in my book. The story in my book tells of how a film crew came from Ottawa wanting to interview me about my fifteen elements and see Cliff’s 15 sculptures. Having no place to show his sculptures, we took the crew around the city – in a kind of one day pop up art show. The pictures of this tour are amazing. So we just kind of took those pictures and compiled a gallery booklet that will also be available at the book launch on Monday.
Why are we doing this?
I don’t know.
Perhaps in hindsight, we are just fascinated with our shapeshifting lives….
The first sculpture Cliff made was of David stalking Bathsheba bathing in the privacy of her own courtyard. This sculpture was created during the trial when he realized Candace was being stalked. With horror, Cliff realized that his hero – the man after God’s own heart – had also stalked a woman and even killed her husband. Except that the sculpture doesn’t look at all like a king, it is a man’s body with a fox head, entitled Foxy David, with a telescope - a sly, dirty, stalking David.
And when Cliff started to understand the evil intentions exhibited during the trial, – out came King Saul – David’s mortal enemy. But this King Saul appears as a stalking Werewolf, right next to his Throne of Swords. The fierceness of the two sculptures is a little surprising when one realizes that the sculptor is truly a peace-loving Mennonite at heart.
I write about all of this in my book. The story in my book tells of how a film crew came from Ottawa wanting to interview me about my fifteen elements and see Cliff’s 15 sculptures. Having no place to show his sculptures, we took the crew around the city – in a kind of one day pop up art show. The pictures of this tour are amazing. So we just kind of took those pictures and compiled a gallery booklet that will also be available at the book launch on Monday.
Why are we doing this?
I don’t know.
Perhaps in hindsight, we are just fascinated with our shapeshifting lives….
“Shapeshifting requires the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you are. If you can get over your attachment to labeling yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you can be virtually anybody. You can slip in and out of different shells, even different animal forms or deity forms.” - Zeena Schreck
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