About the Art from the Artist
(Page 4)

The Chumash Indians (near Santa Barbara, California) who were absorbed by other Indian tribes entrusted their ceremonies to those tribes. It is common among American Indians to preserve and celebrate the rituals of other tribes as a way of maintaining the "spirit" of a tribe that is no longer functioning as a tribe. Many universal concepts seem to be shared intertribally.  

As I was working upon a Chumash style painting I got the impression from the consciousness that I was touching that many traditions need to be brought back and included in ritual celebrations today. The ritual portrayal of the ancestors of the Chumash through shamanic art needs to be continued to preserve our awareness of our interconnectedness with the ancestors and our responsibility to creation as participants in creation. Like most American Indians, the Chumash believed that their response to creation did have an effect; they were not helpless victims of a capricious universe. 

By creating rituals and keeping the traditions, the people affirm their sense of belonging to and participating in all of creation. Even quantum physics is recognizing that the observer becomes the participant in scientific experiments. Humankind needs to reconnect with the forces of the heavens and of the earth and of the ancestors to restore the balance of life. When we deny our ability to respond to a keeping of the order, then our part of creating reality is weakened and reality itself is weakened.