Apifera Farm - where art, story, animals & woman merge. Home to artist Katherine Dunn

Apifera Farm is a registered 501 [c][3]. #EIN# 82-2236486

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©Katherine Dunn.





Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Healing my heart inside out



You can see many more felted creatures on the site.

The creatures that walk this farm each have a voice resonating in my head, and heart. While I consider myself a happy, grounded person, living out the dream of having landed in my own sense of place - Apifera - I have much melancholy that I felt into and out of these creatures. I do it for myself but also for them too. Just as I need them to share something of myself, to expunge sadness or spread a moment of joy's essence, they in turn need me to come to life and be the creature they are meant be.

The rage of one's teens and twenties that in my case was unbridled until I matured and found the outlet of working on my art consistently gave way to a more refined angst in my thirties and forties. Often this angst was entangled in the non committed male in my life, but I can say with clarity now that I was not in a place that allowed me to fulfill my potential as a person and artist and when an artist feels they aren't working to their potential, there is angst.

I am restless. August always makes me lazy, but also restless. I allow myself to indulge more in the land and farm projects such as remending fences for the tenth time that a 2 foot tall goat keeps mastering. But I am preparing myself to once again engage in my inner sanctum of creating.

These felted creatures are characters of my own inner village. They are initially inspired by an animal in the barnyard, but always end up meshing memories of human creatures long gone, or those that are lingering in their last days here on earth. In this way they are my healing creatures.