ENERGY & INK
Whenever Heaven initiates life,
breath (energy)
is sent to Earth.
Earth obediently receives and transforms,
developing unceasingly
the forms that correspond
to the endless,
creative movement
of Heaven.
Although I was always trying to understand and yield to the creative drive, it wasn’t until studying energy healing that I discovered the key to freedom from conceptual ideas and gave expression to pure energy. Through attuning to silence, inner feelings, or the qualities of nature, I allow uncensored impulses to move the brush and define the moment, the gesture.
With a background in Illustration, twenty years of Decorative Painting, and a deep exploration of energy healing, I found “big brush painting” could give vent to a range of powerful emotions to the most refined and delicate feelings, if listened to carefully. It was after taking a big brush-making class with fellow ink and calligraphy artist Barbara Bash and combining the most basic of instructions from my Chinese friend and teacher, Dr. Sing Ma Foon, that the energetic principles of Reiki opened a method that fulfilled my desire to render the invisible forces surrounding and comprising us. It is my hope that the viewer can feel the “chi” and know they are always “In the Flow” between heaven and earth.
My mother, Jean H. Cannon, at her studio and store "The Potter's Wheel" in Ridgefield, CT, 1975.
A life-size portrait of her done by my father, Fillmore Cannon, seen here on the right.
Here is the internationally shown abstract oil painter, Ahmed Yacoubi, in 1954. I met him in 1976 when I moved to NYC and have recently finished my memoir about the impact of him on my life and work:
MY YEARS WITH AHMED YACOUBI.
The painting is "Falling Creatures", 28" X 22", 1975
Dr. Sing Ma Foon is a remarkable artist, athlete, and Olympic coach from China, shown here with one of his "pre-splashed ink" paintings shown at the Ghangdong Museum of Art.
In the front row are CC Wang and Dr. Sing Foon Ma, the guests of honor, with the museum staff and myself standing at the opening of these two artists' joint exhibition in 1998 at the Ghangdong Museum of Art, one of the first major Chinese museums to exhibit abstract paintings.