COURTNEY DAVIS SACRED ART
Your consciousness can change the consciousness of others
TRANSITION
Transition 2013
The routine of caring for my mother had totally messed up my energy levels and disrupted any chance of working deeply through this period of 2012. I had teamed up with an Irish giftware company and was creating a lot of new artwork for them It wasn’t design work that was in any way fulfilling. The ten images I created for them included designs for Irish coffee, cupcakes, gingerbread men, Porter cake, racing cars and even Irish stew. However it was going to generate some much needed regular royalty income and ease some financial pressures from the dissolution of a disastrous business partnership.
The Ravenous For Art exhibition had stopped and a Courtney Davis jewellery licensing range deal had collapsed for a second time. In the midst of all of this and working on Purity of Fire, I was busy organising the arrangements for my mother’s burial in April 2013. Her wish was for her ashes to be buried with my father in a small churchyard in Holborn, London. It was complicated because they no longer took burials there. My father’s burial there many years before was only granted because, as a boy, he had attended the school attached to the church. There were more than a few papers that needed attending before the burial ceremony could be granted and we were in luck that they were planning to do some restoration to the graveyard so my father’s pavement stone could be lifted up and my mother’s ashes placed beside him without too much disruption.
I had also been given notice that I would have to leave Mountcross Bungalow at the beginning of May. That impending upheaval was paramount on my mind and I was spurred on to make one last large painting before I left a home in which I had been so productive. I pushed my commission work aside for a while and, with mixed feelings regarding my future, began working on Transitions. I started the drawing on 14th February, sketching out the flames that were to radiate from the centre. It soon became clear that the relic of Brighid should sit in this place. From then on, the art seemed to fully embody her spirit and the triple form of the Goddess grew out from the flames and she overlaid the cycle of the seasons.
I have never gone into too much depth regarding the meaning and the symbolism of my paintings. I prefer to leave that interpretation to the viewer. I am happy to share what was happening while the work was in progress. Perhaps that offers guidance to the viewer’s insights about the work and its symbols. I enjoy listening to people’s explanations of the piece and
am fascinated by how much people find a correlation to something I had not seen or seen as meaningful. An advantage to painting on wood and then varnishing and waxing the art, is giving people an opportunity to actually touch the painting. I have often stood and watched people’s reaction to the art as they reach forward and feel the texture of the paint and, hopefully, some of the energy it emanates. I am often asked if the painting has been computer generated. People are shocked when I tell them that I painted each and every dot.
When I was doing exhibition tours and book signings in the USA, I was often asked if I was Irish. No. They would then ask if I live in Ireland. No. I understand their confusion and amazement. Through the creation of fifty books containing expressions of Celtic design, I had never set foot onto the soil of ancient monuments. I had always created my work from photos. A final question is often an assumption that I must take drugs. Thankfully apart from a black Americano or a glass of red wine in the evening, I have been totally drug free with the exception of brief periods of much needed pain killers. And in those brief times, I found they blocked the connection with creative energies and influences or at least dulled it down enough to make work impossible. I think the Universe was telling me to take time out and relax and not push.
On the 8th March in 2013 I was invited to Ireland by Gosling Games, a company that had contracted for my design work. From London I travelled to Cork by coach for my first visit to Ireland. In the short week I spent visiting in West Cork, I really fell in love with the country and its people. I decided to work out the possibilities of coming to live in this country.
On this visit I was overwhelmed by the experience of touching the ancient stones and standing in the sacred places. Places I had only painted from photographs. Places like Newgrange and the carved stones of Knowth brought me to tears, the emotion was so great. As I visited the different well known and magical hidden away places, I had the strong impression of the Spirit of Ireland wrapping its arms around me and the strong sense of love and protection. Touched deeply by this
energy, I was called to pledge myself in service to the Spirit of Ireland in anyway I could, in gratitude for the inspiration it had given me throughout my artistic life.
When I returned to the UK I went back to painting Transition. There was now a new fervour to my work as I felt a new focus and the possibility of a very new beginning in my life. I really felt I had brought part of Ireland back with me to Dorset.
The painting was nearing completion and the time was moving closer to the 15th April, the date of internment for my mother’s ashes. I remember vividly how the painting was completed on the evening of the 14th. Normally, at the point the artwork is finished, the energy totally switches off leaving now doubt that the work is done. It’s an odd time with a strong feeling of loss. And I never have the urge to return to the paining to change anything. The energies have stepped away. Yet later that evening I felt a strong urge to go back to the painting and add an owl in the bottom right corner. I question the impulse, but the need for this addition was very strong. Eventually, the painting was completed in the early hours of the 15th April, the day of the burial. I was well aware that the owl represented my mother and through this art she would forever watch over me. The Brighid relic placed at the centre and the owl in the corner assured that I would never sell this piece. The symbology of the owl is that of the Goddess and represents intuition and mystical
wisdom and the ancient knowledge of the powers of the moon.
When I was doing exhibition tours and book signings in the USA, I was often asked if I was Irish. No. They would then ask if I live in Ireland. No. I understand their confusion and amazement. Through the creation of fifty books containing expressions of Celtic design, I had never set foot onto the soil of ancient monuments. I had always created my work from photos. A final question is often an assumption that I must take drugs. Thankfully apart from a black Americano or a glass of red wine in the evening, I have been totally drug free with the exception of brief periods of much needed pain killers. And in those brief times, I found they blocked the connection with creative energies and influences or at least dulled it down enough to make work impossible. I think the Universe was telling me to take time out and relax and not push.
On the 8th March in 2013 I was invited to Ireland by Gosling Games, a company that had contracted for my design work. From London I travelled to Cork by coach for my first visit to Ireland. In the short week I spent visiting in West Cork, I really fell in love with the country and its people. I decided to work out the possibilities of coming to live in this country.
On this visit I was overwhelmed by the experience of touching the ancient stones and standing in the sacred places. Places I had only painted from photographs. Places like Newgrange and the carved stones of Knowth brought me to tears, the emotion was so great. As I visited the different well known and magical hidden away places, I had the strong impression of the Spirit of Ireland wrapping its arms around me and the strong sense of love and protection. Touched deeply by this
energy, I was called to pledge myself in service to the Spirit of Ireland in anyway I could, in gratitude for the inspiration it had given me throughout my artistic life.
When I returned to the UK I went back to painting Transition. There was now a new fervour to my work as I felt a new focus and the possibility of a very new beginning in my life. I really felt I had brought part of Ireland back with me to Dorset.
The painting was nearing completion and the time was moving closer to the 15th April, the date of internment for my mother’s ashes. I remember vividly how the painting was completed on the evening of the 14th. Normally, at the point the artwork is finished, the energy totally switches off leaving now doubt that the work is done. It’s an odd time with a strong feeling of loss. And I never have the urge to return to the paining to change anything. The energies have stepped away. Yet later that evening I felt a strong urge to go back to the painting and add an owl in the bottom right corner. I question the impulse, but the need for this addition was very strong. Eventually, the painting was completed in the early hours of the 15th April, the day of the burial. I was well aware that the owl represented my mother and through this art she would forever watch over me. The Brighid relic placed at the centre and the owl in the corner assured that I would never sell this piece. The symbology of the owl is that of the Goddess and represents intuition and mystical
wisdom and the ancient knowledge of the powers of the moon.
I had planned for 15th April to be a day of releasing bonds so after my mother’s internment, I took the challenge and arranged to meet with someone with whom I’d had a relationship in 2011. I had agonized over losing this relationship as her presence had been with me through my awakening journey. She was a double edged sword that both inspired me and revealed my dark feelings. I was hopeful that in this final meeting together my need for her companionship would ebb and I would find some peace and closure. The meeting went well. I noticed the magnetic pull I was very much expecting to rise up wasn’t there. Neither was any urge to rekindle the relationship. And I realised just how mischievous my mind had been over the past two years, conjuring up emotions, twisting
and manipulating feelings. The bonds were released. A couple of weeks later I drove a van full of my belongings to Galley Head, in West Cork, Ireland and my Irish adventure began.