"The Eye With Which I See God"

I started beginning with nothing, and then I made the figure in clay. It's all blue with stone color andsome gold colors, especially the eyes, which represent God to me. The eye is gold - it might stand for the original fireball. The round forms represent the universe - the way God tends to form things. And the forms are egg-shaped because the universe is in formation; it is coming to be like an egg. This is numero uno, the number one piece because in the beginning there was nothing but the fireball.

The mouth is open, blowing the breath of life. There are many curves because that is feminine ad because organic forms are always curves, whether in animals or plants. All of nature operates that way - in curves.

In the Nativity I put the mother with the child, presenting her with a blessed face - she is happy and she is tender, pleased with the child that starts forming in her womb. The shape of the head is like the umbilical cord, which is connected of course with the fetus. In the back are the lines, which represent explosions of life coming to be in the universe. Blood flows and life is passed on

On the left side is a curve to reflect the curve of life itself. Life never goes in one way; it always goes in different directions. The colors are pastel stone, brownish, and this mother - any mother - is happy at giving birth. The fetus might be seen as infinity, in which case the mother is a Cosmic Mother, a Cosmic Mary, mother of the universe...

A great bird dominates this clay piece and it represents the Holy Spirit descending from the sky and wrapping itself around Jesus, who is present near the bottom of the piece. There is something very festive about this piece. Baptism as a feast or a festival is being spoken of. It is a very happy tablet. It is playful and childlike - colorful marbles and beads are present in the very alive sky, and these represent the stars and planets that shine and smile down on us. I am appealing to children and not just adults. The piece includes having fun; freshness and spontaneity are celebrated.

It is earthy with stone colors...for two hours I baked or cooked many crystals and gold stones or pyrite - what is known as "fool's gold" - into the clay. The result is that the piece actually looks like a big cookie - a chocolate chip cookie with colorful M&Ms. What child would not be excited about that? Or what adult with the child still alive in him or her?

The mirrors in this icon invite us to reflect on ourselves, and to seek the Divinity that is within us and vice versa. It is two-in-one - us and Divinity. The mirror is the most important part of this icon. The mirrors also speak to the reality that each of us is part of everything else in the universe. We carry the elements and the history of all the other beings of the cosmos in our bodies, and our minds are eager to make connection with the rest of the universe as well....

The shapes in this icon depict movement and transfiguration - things get shaped and undergo shapeshifting. The eye here is made of minerals; it is a gem. So too the divine eye emerges in a snake shape. The snake is often demonized, as in the Garden of Eden story, but here it is redeemed. The serpent is standing up; it holds an eye of God and an eye of others; there is a harmony returning. The flesh stands for all things, not just humans; at the level of flesh, all beings are equal....

In this piece I offer two profiles of men. One is blowing what appears to be round forms or whirlpools (in Spanish, remolino) and the other one is receiving these. They help each other or hate each other. We give out good or we give out bad in life, and whatever you send out of your mouth comes back to you. So our egos affect other people. In this case, we have to know we're all connected and we're all embraced, and what you do to somebody else, you do to yourself.

So I tried to put these ideas into this tablet. The piece demonstrates some kind of art deco influence, along with a Mayan influence in the two male profiles, and in the colors, which are also again very earthy, terracotta colors....

In this piece I put the eye, my symbol for Divinity, in the center of the cross. I shaped the cross like a starfish with curved forms and with the three divinities - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - represented by the three forms of circles at the top. These intersecting circles can also be the mystery of Life, Death, and Resurrection. There is also the hint of a labyrinth...we need to remember that life begins as a spiral And it requires water, so the curves also speak of water....

I have learned since I made this symbol that if you cut off the limb of a starfish, a new one grows back. So there is a symbol of death and rebirth within my version of the cross as a starfish. And the cross looks almost like a bird. It wants to take flight.

Resurrection for me signifies that after Jesus died, he went back with his Father, flying up to the sky, to the Infinite, with a peaceful look on his face. For this reason in my icon he is happy with his labor here, with the work that he has accomplished, and will be from now to eternity....

He is radiant. The gold color speaks to the splendor of Divinity. The crown in this case is a glorious crown...because he was going up with the Trinity again. Also, there is a suggestion of a spaceship, because we don't know how many other beings throughout the entire universe also glorify him, how many in all the different places he's been around the universe....So this event of the Resurrection is bigger than us, bigger than our anthropocentrism and everything else.

The Ascension represents Christ going up to the heavens or the infinite universe, in the form of a green man with one hand reaching upand one leaving the material earth of the material body. The shape is - in my interpretation - an animal, a dragon. It's a dragon leaf, and it's green because he's just leaving earth. And the purple represents Christ's pain due to suffering here on earth. Purple also represents spirituality. Christ is reaching up, leaving this earth with pain because he loves us. But he is also leaving his legacy, and the figures of labyrinth or infinite circles speak of the universe where he is going.

This clay piece is made of volcanic rock and pyrite and tourmaline, along with resin and colored tile mixed into the clay. The pure minerals tell the history of the universe through which the Holy Spirit creates and has always created. The glass forms a kind of mirror, inviting the viewer to look inside to find the Cosmic Christ and the Holy Spirit within themself.

This piece is very earthy, with pure clay and rocks which conjure up the fire that the Holy Spirit is so often identified with (as at Pentecost, the flames of fire). The fire is ancient and it is cosmic and burns everywhere in the center of the earth. These same elements are found everywhere in the universe, so they are cosmic elements....