A Tree in Winter Remembers Spring
Artist’s Statement
Denita Benyshek
I am of Czech heritage, born into a tight immigrant community in north central Kansas. As a young child, I lived on my grandparents’ farm in a house without indoor plumbing save for a hand pump at the kitchen sink. I loved living amidst animals and plants, immersed in the cycles of nature. The Czech community continued celebrating a traditional harvest festival. The oldest woman in the community was the Queen.
During the two years prior to my MFA studies, I traveled in Russia and taught art at a folk arts/fine arts college in Pskov. Immersed in Slavic culture, I found my way of creating art supported and appreciated.
I received a large private grant that allowed me to go to graduate school. At the University of Washington, I was considered an outsider artist because my artworks were beautiful and visionary, representing a mystical, inspirited natural world.
During this period of academic rejection, Pilchuck Glass School gave me a full scholarship that allowed me to study with a contemporary Czech artist who was trained in traditional glass engraving.
A Tree in Winter Remembers Spring offers a ghost in the mists image of a deciduous tree in winter, with the images of flowers floating around the tree. Past, present, future all depicted simultaneously. Time as a constant, a cycle.
Using a rotary Dremel with diamond-encrusted bits, I drew the flowing lines of the flowers – a very slow, painstaking process requiring steady hands – on the front of a sheet of glass. On the reverse side is the depiction of the translucent tree. The negative spaces, the not tree places, were painted with yellow carpenter’s glue. When the glue was dried, I gently sandblasted the glass, then removed the glue. The third, back layer, is a piece of handblown stained glass. Traditional stained glass is blown in a tube, which creates the striations, and the tube is then cut open to dry while flat. Because this artwork is dimensional, like a low relief sculpture, it changes in different light. Sometimes, the tree casts a subtle shadow onto the stained glass or the flowers are more evident or the tree is more or less transparent.
Given my story, it’s interesting that this artwork was purchased by King County, Washington, for the Ethnic Heritage Collection at Harborview Medical Center – where people are healing and dying and being born.
I am a mother, an artist, a mental health counselor, and an interdisciplinary researcher on contemporary artists as shamans. Korean manshin Kim Junghee initiated me as a shaman through a traditional naerim gut. My formal education includes BFA and MFA in painting, MA and PhD in psychology, with additional training in dance and jazz/blues vocals. I’ve received many awards, scholarships, and grants, including the Creativity and Madness Conference in Santa Fe, NM, and the Pilchuck Glass School. I’m currently the artist in residence at the Botanica Gardens in Wichita, KS.
Previous publications include: The contemporary artist as shaman, ReVision: A Journal of Consciousness and Transformation; A historical and critical overview of the artist as shaman and recent research, Shamanhood and its arts, Budapest/Warsaw; Art audience as shamanic community: How art meets psychological, social, and spiritual needs, Modern artists and shamanism (Vol. II of Encyclopedia of shamanism), Beijing; An Overview of Western Ideas regarding the Artist as Shaman, Modern artists and shamanism (Vol. II of Encyclopedia of shamanism) Beijing. These chapters and articles, as well as the foundational theoretical study on contemporary artists as shamans, are open access and available online at https://saybrook.academia.edu/DenitaBenyshekPhDMFA
My artworks are in many private and public collections, including University of Washington Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center, King County Ethnic Heritage Collection, and The Glass Museum, Ebeltoft, Denmark. Past curated group shows include Redefining Visionary Art, New York City, with solo exhibits at art galleries in Seattle, WA, Tacoma, WA, Olympia, WA, Kirkland, WA, Bellingham, WA, Sun Valley, ID, Santa Fe, NM, Portland, OR, and my home state of Kansas. You may read my artist’s statement and view more art at https://www.denitabenyshek.com.
