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Choose a category to view some of Mary McClelland's
paintings
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Labyrinth (acrylic on canvas) -
"I was thinking in mandalas, and then I saw in some book this
labyrinth that was on the floor of the cathedral in
Chartres. I had never seen it when I had been there.
But then I looked at it, and I followed it around and around, and
I saw that it was only one way, that you couldn't get lost, and
that you had to go the whole bit. It appealed to me even
more that the monks would help, because of their meditation -- and
so I started out with just that. I started it at Yelping
Hill, because it was getting kind of late... I think we stayed
later. And I changed the perspective to give it depth, and give it
even more feeling to the center. I took a long time working
that out to get it right. And then Nick came in and said, 'I
know Ma, she's going to fill it with beasties!' And I looked, and
he was right. "Then it took a long time for all these
different characters to go through all their different
experiences: swimming across that lake and almost drowning,
meeting all these things, and some helping each other, and so
forth. At each change there had to be something to confront,
see, grapple with. Face. And it all began to make more
sense as I painted it, as I began to see how it fell
together... it was falling together for me. Then I got to
the end and I said, here it is. The moment sort of dissolved
into this Light. And so I had the one sort of disappearing
into the Light. But the one just before it is leaning down
and helping the one below it - just giving a hand to help that one
up... "It shows that you think you're on the right
direction and you look across and you say, Gee that guy's all on
the wrong path, and he's even going the wrong direction.
Then he can go around and he's further away from the Light, the
whole bit. You start out quite near the Light, you go, you
get drawn up close, and then you have to come back and he's even
further away than he realized, but he's ahead of you when you get
around the next corner. He was going the right
direction. You were going the wrong direction."
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