Growing up surrounded by the woods, fields and swamps of Minnesota created an experiential lens that often influences my art. I discovered in nature a core of connection that sources spiritual mystery as well as metaphor. Even when I was a child, this wove into my artistic imagery in ways I consider not only to be artistic, but spiritual as well.
Attendance at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design drew me to South Minneapolis where I lived for 15 years. I found the creative and diverse urban culture of South Minneapolis to be spiritually and emotionally liberating. I reveled in the interplay of human diversity cradled in the community. There I began my family. I considered the embrace of life through the embrace of diversity found in South Minneapolis to be a spiritual gift not only to myself but to my children. These values were key pieces in the shape my art would take.
At twenty-eight I was accepted as an artist into the Jay Johnson American Folk Heritage Gallery in NYC. During that time my oil paintings featured both the natural settings of my childhood as well as urban settings bubbling with community life inspired by my neighborhood.
Now, as an empty nester, I have oriented my focus towards my love of art. The reorganization of my home space and time to support my artistic creativity has been a life’s journey sourced from personal transformation. I experience such transformation as the spiritual business of living and find it to be satisfying when my art work is connected to life as it moves and transforms people and nature.
I experience divinity and spirit as that which dances life and movement into form. The nature based lens of Paganism speaks loudly to me because it focuses attention on the movements of the natural world. It integrates the physicality of being human, the physicality of being alive, with a transcendent spirituality. This transcendence means being part of that which is under the surface of form, connecting us all, underneath and through the shared experience of living.
In my painting, “Sun Bath” [new work displayed for "Something Under the Sun"] I seek to capture the feeling of the Solstice Sun at its peak, radiating its cleansing, life giving rays towards the figure and the land. The figure turns towards and captures the Solstice light as the sun’s rays beam downward to cleanse and nourish. The season of spring and its efforts to emerge from the dark cold of winter are left behind; in the transformation to summer the land and figure burgeon with abundance and vitality. Through integrating my experience of the natural changes of the land with my experience of moving through change as a human being, I express my Pagan spirituality through art.
Tamara Anderson is an acrylic and oil painter, sculptor, ecstatic dancer, and 16 year Pagan with eight years' experience as High Priestess of an eclectic Wiccan coven, Pagan instructor and writer of Pagan curricula.
"Breath of Knowledge" Acrylic on Canvas, 20" x 16"
"Turning Toward Transformation" Acrylic on Canvas 48" x 36"
"Greenman" Clay Plate
"Goddess Necklace" Sculpted Clay Beads.
The main bead signifies a journey of creativity via Venus of Willendorf imagery. The other larger beads are rendered with rune Symbols for specific transformational path work. In this piece my pagan spiritual practice and art merge to support one another in this piece created through ritual and art.