SUFI OWL ELEMENTAL 2026 / Embodiment
CHERI A ELLIS copyright 2024 / All Rights Reserved
SUFI FLOWER SISTERS painting (below) is a 13 year journey into the concept of individuation, completing in the last weeks of 2025 through the first weeks of 2026. The painting, never meant to be seen, or shown, or sold, began its evolution in 2013 where it seeded the effort to create and give voice through a process of transformative alchemization. This process allowed for the embodiment of the philosophies that inspired the imagery, to be internalized through the days, weeks and years it developed. The painting is a 'style development" piece that began to express, to take on, the essence of the style that self alignment creates.
SUFI OWL / EMBODIMENT is a digital collage (below) merging the flowers from the painting, with a painted owl head, and a handmade dress created from fabric printed with the "Plant Medicine" artwork. The back-round imagery is created from a pen and ink illustration called "Owl Bee" (click onto the small images at the left). These continuing fantasy depictions make the little ethereal animal elementals the truest of models for the garments that embody the wisdoms of nature. This particular imagery is being developed for an oracle card series.
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INDIVIDUATION / "the psychological process of developing a distinct, authentic sense of self and personality that is separate from the family, societal, or collective influences. Integrating conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche to become a whole, unique individual.
FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE /
It has been through running the evolution of my soul life process, through the corridors of my creative world, that my purpose as an intentional artist has honed its style and definition. The "Sufi Flower Sisters' began as the "Bee Sisters' painting, during a time of great personal upheaval and change. 2013 was my return to black and white illustration and the beginning of a style of painting reminiscent of third grade crayon illustrations depicting scenes of Native American Indians. Strong contrast imagery, rich in color, with bold black areas of outline and efficacy. The 2013 time period birthed the "Bee Odyssey" series of black and white illustrations, and the "Bee Sisters" seemed to embody the effort to create balance with those black and white perspectives. This last decade of creative practice was inspired by the desire to individuate, and in that delivered one epiphany after another through the study and research on the impact of creativity for the general health and happiness of human life.
The painting would go though 3 significant changes, imagery being sanded off and re-designed. Lines that began as free flowing brush strokes, were re-created with strong design dynamics that felt like mathematical equations. The painting would take on aspects I wasn't actually aware of, until days, months, later.
NEGREDO / "the blackening (or nigredo) is the first, often painful stage of this process, representing a 'psychosymbolic' death where the ego breaks down and the shadow self is confronted" This might be why I have often incorporated the strong aspect of black outlining, being a creature of constant transmutation through life experiences. At some point, I repainted the larger bee designs, making them all black, and writing on them a secret message, in green paint, with the runic alphabet. The "Life / Death / Rebirth" cycles of nature that the bee so powerfully represents, and our inherent survival need to abide by these laws. The painting finished with the core of the sister on the right being painted black and then graced with the white outline of an emerging seedling.
ALBEDO / (Whiteness) "the negredo process transitioning to the albedo (the whitening) , which brings light, clarity, and purification to the consciousness. The washing away of impurities, and bringing light to the matter." The Albedo that heals our gut biomes, changing the looping patterns of stuck behaviors by creating new neural pathways of awareness that express though the pineal 3rd eye. Changing that story. The thirteen years of painting, finished in one day, with a sprouting albedo plant in her gut biome.
RUBEDO / (Redness) "the final stage of the individuation process, symbolizing perfection (authenticity and self alignment versus an external expectation) synthesis, and the total fusion of opposing principles. It represents the completion of the Philosopher's Stone / alchemy, turning lead into gold." The painting is filled with red mandala-like, painted spheres with multiple unfolding petals. A red backround for the transmuting moths and butterflies.
FESTIVALS 2025 / page being created / JAN 24 2026
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FESTIVALS 2025 /
QUEEN OF WANDS / TAROT / imagery (below) was created with pen and ink, then digitally recolored into red. Her abounding head decoration signifies increased perception, and her staff wands are graced with the philosopher's stone, an alchemical symbol representing the ultimate transformation, turning led into gold. New beginnings; the earthy aspect of fire; optimism.
The fear is conquered! (tiger) The feathers on her head also represent a sense of justice which she has gained by overcoming her fear. Passion, vitality, and flaming energy. When fear disappears, energy is revitalized / renewed. The self-limiting fears, the tiger's corpse, can be buried and forgotten.
OREGON COUNTRY FAIR / 2025
IMAGINE festival / Orcas Island / 2025 / wearing the"Victory" t-shirt design inspired by the 'Tarot / 6 of Wands'
Feb 14
For now this page is updated .... but I do intend to add a little more of the story of 2025!
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FOLKLIFE / SEATTLE
was a deeply rewarding experience, having been a Seattle artist visiting the festival throughout my entire life. Attending the festival during significant phases in my own artistic evolution, it was with great pleasure that I found myself sharing my creative work for the first time there, the environment profoundly conducive with the essence and message of my work. A potent cross cultural collective infused with appreciation for the creative spirit.
OREGON COUNTRY FAIR
is a festival that has an epic reputation. Its not for any one thing, it seems to offer an experience that people recall seeped with a magically sublime regard. I injured my knee on the way to the festival, and thought I'd be asked to go home, but was met with a team of benevolent beings that that would help me thoughout the entire festival! There evolved a combination of injury, heat, vending, community and support, that stands out as one of the most rewarding/fulfilling experiences in my entire life as an artist.
IMAGINE FESTIVAL / ORCAS ISLAND
was seeped in nostalgia, as having lived on Orcas Island in my early 20's. The festival was intimate, spiritual, and vending near the live staged music made it a phenomenal experience! It was a penetrating soulful event that unified many a creative vision in its communal, connective celebration!
DRESSES continued throughout the year of 2025. Years of artwork created to give voice to bees, to the inherent lessons of healing and regeneration in our natural world, was silkscreened onto cotton pieces and sewn into illustrative dress designs. A life time of developed mediums were brought together to combine in their creative effort to give voice to the Divine Feminine. Bright red zippers placed at a slight diagonal on the bodice, seem to offer a sense of an edgy newness felt in our collective, something we are opening up to. The dress designs remained simple and highly adjustable, yards of hand made bias cut ties added to bring in the waist, furthering an element of personal styling. The artwork also progressed into repeat designs that were digitally printed (by Spoonflower) onto yardage fabric and made into dresses.
PHOTOGRAPHY has always been a vital part in the overall effort, the desire, to share these dresses in ways that break though our mainstream concepts of 'fashion'. Nontraditional imagery that allows for the dresses to be visited in aspects that further express such elements as mirroring, filtering that creates an essence rather than a cover-up, and just as an over all non-conventional way to experience a dress. Clearly for an aesthetic, and not to be used for on-line sales. ALL of the imagery is gathered through the moving development of the creative process, there have been no planned photoshoots, the pictures are quick snapshots in hopes to acquire a visual record of the work. Digitally editing the photos has been conducive with an intentional effort to re-create fashion neuropathways, exploring the way edited visuals help to expand and inspire the next pieces created. A basic concept for these dresses has been that they are extremely wearable, dressed up or dressed down, they boundary break and give voice to current themes that the community is passionate about, whilst being simple and easy to wear.
ILLUSTRATION 2022 / For the black and white / pen and ink illustrations silkscreened in these designs, CLICK onto the link up at the top LEFT
