"Inner Landscape"
ARTIST STATEMENT
Beth Kingsley Hawkins, M.A., is a Board-certified Music Therapist whose photographic career as a fine art and nature photographer began in 1993 when her imagination was sparked by capturing the luminous light on the sandstone in slot canyons in and on Navajo land. As a teacher of Guided Imagery and Music, and a Fellow of the Association of Music and Imagery, she was actively involved in using music to awaken the intuitive self and anchor one's own inner light and imagery in a creative response to life.
It was at this same time, having been 80 feet deep in the earth in the sacred Slot Canyons and feeling a new connection to Mother Earth that the red rock country of Sedona worked its special magic in her life – resulting in the purchase of a retreat home in Arizona on Oak Creek at the base of Cathedral Rock, a spot known for its concentrated spiraling of feminine energy.
Fascinated by the inner images that emerged through her photographs and captivated by the psyche's ability to manifest them outside herself in the objects she was photographing, she immersed herself totally in this new mode of creative expression. Sharing photographs with others who made their images at the same site, she learned first hand that no one else can take the same pictures that you can, that it is about one’s response to nature as seen through one’s own soul experience. One takes the picture with one's psyche as well as the camera. Thus one can find surprising imagery emerging in her work, a manifestation of divine energy in the form of figures, madonnas and angels...and yes, even bears….thus far...
Sunflower Bear
Invited to present at the Washington, D.C. Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology in ‘94, she chose as her topic "Music as Magician: the Inner and Outer Landscape." Displaying 37 photos of slot canyons and inviting everyone to chose the image they wished to use as a doorway to spirit, she began the specially-chosen music. As the music played, she was amazed to realize that there were exactly 37 people present. She was further awed as each person revealed that they had chosen a different one of the 37 images to work with – there were 37 different images for 37 different people!…which gave me a renewed appreciation for the uniqueness of the human psyche.
Her first major exhibit, "Journey of the Soul," January 1, 1995, resulted in the publishing of Inner Landscape as the theme brochure cover for Common Boundary Conference, also appearing on the magazine cover with the caption "Enter the realm where Earth and Soul are One," linking Psychology, Creativity and Spirituality around the theme of inner and outer ecology. Inspired by the beautiful responses to her images, she developed her own greeting card line, Holy Originals, featuring the fine art and music of nature. She thinks of them as 'Gratitude Cards,' and it is her prayer that her work will enrich the inner life of the spirit in the lives of those that it touches.
She has taught "Photography as a Doorway to Spirit" as part of the artist series at Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat Center.
Her 'soul of the flower' entitled Divine Presence, an Iris close-up, has been published as a Journal of Energy Medicine Cover, and in the 2001 Inner Reflections Calendar published by Self-Realization Fellowship, beautifully matched with a quote by Yogananda, "Each flower is a divine Temple in which the Divine One comes to us." Her Little Blue butterfly image was published in their 2002 Calendar. Her "Conversations" of three puffins having a pow-wow was chosen for the 2004 Calendar. In each case, the image chosen was one of 52 from 25,000 entries, and all three calendars were published in German, Italian, and Spanish.
Her photographic awards include nine acceptances in the prestigious Wilmington International Exhibition of Photography, the Best of Year Award at the Delaware Photographic Society for three puffins in conversation, third place (two years in a row) in the Ward Foundation's Birds of the World Competition for Conversations (the puffins) and Love Story, two Great Blue Herons on their nest; and a third place in the Garden Art Show at Brookside Gardens for Communion a portrait of two white Calla Lilies flowing into each other.
Her Hummingbird photos have appeared in five books and as a cover image, and in magazines, including Perennials, and her Slot Canyon images have appeared as book and CD covers and have been featured in Meridians, the Journal of Traditional Acupuncture. She has exhibited widely in churches, retreat centers, restaurant galleries, and art galleries, from Newark and Wilmington in Delaware, and Baltimore and Silver Spring in Maryland to Cleveland, Ohio's Earth Prayers Gallery with topics as diverse as "God Laughs in Flowers," "Images of Provence" and "Visual Music: a Sacred Encounter with Photography."
Her newest creative endeavor has been to self-publish a limited edition hand-made letterpress book, "Word Pearls: Seeing into Meaning," which links twenty-five of her original photographs with the Haiku they inspired Beth to write. In addition, she is co-creating websites through the use of key images that conceptually enhance the mission of the site.