Recognizing Recurrent Totems

A few years ago, I went to a lecture by an American artist who told how she had taken stock of all of the symbols that recurred in her work and it encouraged me to do the same. The heart, both symbolic and anatomic, is a shape that has found its way into my art and life for decades. Similarly, the butterfly has been a recurring image for me in the nearly 20 years I have been doing collage and assemblage. When I initially started to recognize the recurrent totems in my own work, I was sort of embarrassed by the hearts and butterflies thing; they seemed too childish. I continued with the exercise that this artist lecturer had talked about by identifying additional recurring images and symbols in my work. Then, I researched them as to meanings. Sure enough, there are lots of interesting correlations to my life and experience in the representations that compel me.

Reminds me of a line from the first Harry Potter book, “The wand chooses the wizard,” and makes me wonder, which comes first, the attraction to the totems or the life experience?

• Hearts – life source, seat of emotions, compassion, love

• Moths & Butterflies – change and transformation

• Skulls – death, mortality, and the unachievable nature of immortality

• Roses – love and desire 

• Peonies – romance, marriage 

• Poppies – remembrance

• Birds – perspective & peace

• Spiders – power of creating and making, feminine, widow

• Owls – darkness, magic, mystery, and ancient wisdom

What symbols compel you? On February 15th check out https://www.instagram.com/hospicedoctorswidow/ for a fun announcement about the “at peace” symbol I created for page 32 of The Hospice Doctor’s Widow: A Journal.