The Gallery: Conceptual 4
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Beth E Peterson
Text and Artwork:
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Barriers Oil 24" x 30" "Barriers" is a metaphor. As a metaphor, therefore, my own interpretation of it may be entirely different from your own. I will tell you some of what I was thinking as I created it, but then, ultimately, it is up to your own self how much the painting may speak to you and what it has to say. This painting, like the drawing "Lookout", is derived from the history of shipwrecks along the barrier islands of the Atlantic seaboard. It uses a horse as the conceptual image of our own lives, as we struggle, ultimately on our own, in the turmoils of time, life and confusion. The barrier island may be both the cause of the present turmoil, but also the salvation for the one who is struggling in the heavy surf of circumstances, predispostions, societal norms, whatever. Or in other words, what we think of as being the worst of catastrophies may in fact be an unlooked for and unexpected blessing in disguise. 
Following the Pucá Oil 24" x 30" First, lol, it might help you understand some of this piece's meaning if you know what a pucá is. Pucás are a type of water spirit, often equine in form and often either mischievious or malevolent in intent, in northern European folklore. The word I use here is the oldest form I have found, originating in the Scandanavian countries. Other forms of the word include pooka, pook, pucca, and puck. Pucás often would entice a human to climb up onto their backs, where the victim stuck fast, unable to jump off. Then the pucá would often rush straight to the nearest water in order to drown their victim. Sometimes, though, the pucá would be happy enough to teach the human victim a thing or too...taking them for a wild ride through the night and depositing them safely enough, and hopefully wiser, in the early light of morning. I leave it up to you to determine if this pucá is benign or not, as it leads you through a mountain pass, apparently to a paradise beyond. 
Sand Trap Photograph This jungle bar set caught my eye and set my thoughts going. Visually, I loved the lace of the bars' shadows as they flowed across the sand, both completing the shapes floating in the air as well as seeming to truncate them. Light, air and form...caught...trapped. The sand trap. And that, of course, merely added to the fun of this image and place. For if it is a sand trap, what would it be trapping? Sitting out in the park, feigning to be an innocent amusement for little children to gather on and play within. And what lurks below, in the place where form is truncated? Is it something akin to a trapdoor spider, waiting patiently for its prey to stumble unheedingly across its threshold? Or is it perhaps a trap set for the mind, the imagination. A 'trap', a puzzle, meant to encourage growth and exploration. How reminescent this sand trap is of the other ordinary things and events we meet in our lives every day.
They, too, feign innocence....but they too may be traps for the unwary, or ships of the mind for those who choose to grow.
Ghost Story Oil 15" x 20" I love spooky stuff, lol. Always have, although...that really hasn't included spooky movies until recently. Spooky movies are, to someone with too strong an imagination, all too real-seeming...even if your mind knows better! Anyway, I love a good ghost story, and they are best told outside under a full ring-rimmed moon with the fire crackling just beyond your nose. (It makes the blacks of the night-shadows even darker and denser, and more spooky, than they were already!) But...sometimes the gathering for the ghost stories seems more than what it would at first appear. The story teller takes on the attributes of shaman and/or mentor...guiding their listeners through a realm of dangers and suspense --unseen and uncanny -- to....what?
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