Looking For Gateways
“There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. ”
October 2023 Plein Air Paint Out, Edisto Island
With the question of “thin places” in mind, I started to look around for places that felt right in the Lowcountry.
Photographer & physical therapist Sarah Blanton describes a thin places as one where she experiences spiritual awareness, or profound stillness. I have often felt transported in places outside of Charleston— especially ones where marsh, water, pines, and oaks meet.
I have been especially drawn to places that indicate a transition within the landscape— like bridges, gates, or trees that create an archway. However, I also have been looking for transitional places like swamps, marshes, the beach; or times, like sunrise and sunset. I know “liminality” is a big buzzword in the art world and I kind of cringe using it, but it’s relevant.
Photo by Becca Hopkins, James Island SC
Some of these scenes are empty of people and animals, while others feature people and creatures that I love.
While searching for thin places in the landscape, I started thinking about mythologies with spirit guide traditions. One of the most famous in Western mythologies is the Charon figure of ancient Greece, whose boat ferried the souls of the dead across the rivers Acheron and Styx to Hades. There is a word for this tradition: the psychopomp or “guide of souls.”
“Psychopomps (from the Greek word ψυχοπομπός, psychopompós, literally meaning the ‘guide of souls’)[1] are creatures, spirits, angels, demons, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife.[2]
Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to guide them. Appearing frequently on funerary art, psychopomps have been depicted at different times and in different cultures as anthropomorphic entities, horses, deer, dogs, whip-poor-wills, ravens, crows, vultures, owls, sparrows, and cuckoos. In the case of birds, these are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying.
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Abyssinia, Jerry, 20 x 40”. Oil on Panel. Work in Progress.
I began imagining Jerry as a psychopomp in these landscapes, starting with the first painting in the series, Abyssinia, Jerry. Here a dog pauses for a second as if to decide whether to continue into the dark, or whether to come back out toward whatever he’s looking at.
The viewer in this painting is fairly close to Jerry and eye-level, but others landscapes that interested me encompass more space and have more elements.
