Finding Crow Feathers
Ellen Hemphill Theatre/Film director, Singer, Consultant, Teacher, Collage Artist
Finding crow feathers on your path usually means a message from angels. It could also be a solution that you are looking for or a message to assure you that you are on the right path in dealing with the present situation. They offer you comfort, a suggestion, or a warning when you need it most.
As an artist, I think of Substack as a place to share and reflect for myself (and maybe for others) how the process of creating before the product (a play, a song, a book, a dance, a painting) IS the deeper the art form.
The deep unstoppable intuition and instinct is the engine behind the process. The technique falls into place after inspiration is ignited. It is this combination of essence and technique that is still my lodestar
I have picked up many crow feathers in my life and I would like to share here some of the inspirations that came from their messages. Messages that resulted in movement, voice and theater performances, songs, films, Bardo Art collages and the processes that brought them all to life. I will also offer interviews and exchanges with collaborators that made each work possible. All performance pieces were produced by my company, Archipelago Theatre/Cine, and my teaching clips and descriptions also come from work with Archipelago and from my consulting/counseling company, Cardea Creative Consulting.
I am grateful to my sons, Samuel Lopez-Barrantes (@ifnotparis) and Aaron Lopez Barrantes (@artbyalb) for encouraging me to once again pick up the Crow Feather.
Crows became a leitmotif in much of my work.
The first appearance of crows came in “Out of the Blue” in 2009. When I began to work on this performance, I thought about how certain events, good or bad, happen unexpectedly in our lives and seem to appear ‘out of the blue”. Part of us lives the immediate experience the moment it appears and part of our psyche experiences the event from a distance. As a sort of self-protection, we witness ourselves “outside” of ourselves. This led me to remember Paula Rego’s paintings “Dancing Ostriches” and the witnessing, sometimes judgmental dancers that looked like crows to me. Thus came the idea that crows in the production could serve as the unseen witnesses. Below is the Paula Rego inspirations for the piece and a clip from the final production
“OUT OF THE BLUE”. Archipelago Theatre/Cine
A Clip from “Out of the Blue” https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/12369555
In this space you can expect brief meditations on the process of creation as being the essential aspect of the creation itself. With over forty years of experience as a playwright, director, actor, singer, and theater professor, I look forward to exploring many of the processes in my previous and current work that led to their final creation.
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Welcome to a very lovely place. Your sons are quite gifted. I look forward to reading this over coffee— tomorrow. Still yet sleep time here 😉
Crow feathers wait for me until then.
Finally had time to pick up this feather and sit with it—
Crows as storytellers come to mind. The revelation we have about crows sharing stories and carrying knowledge from generation to generation, warning of ‘bad humans’ and what to stay way from, while sharing the bounty of generational wisdom adds another layer to the metaphor of crows as watchers. I also thought of the Greek Chorus, the element in theater of the ancients serving in many roles—as witness, public voice, characters’ inner dialogue and political or societal opinion, chanting on the sidelines.
Creativity requires recognition of Intuition. I look forward to the story of your process! A reveal into a dialogue we each should have with our creative selves. How we come to an idea sometimes gets lost in ‘the wash’ as they say. Understanding our own path of association is truly a form of archaeology.