Caroline Pyevich paints from vision-created images that reflect the inner workings of her consciousness and the space where dreaming and vision occur. They are a bridge between the self and the divine. “The vision is spontaneous and unplanned,” she explains. “The paintings develop through the process of discovery and inspiration. The layering process and color patterns are a manifestation of my meditations and devotional prayers.”

Pyevich’s works have appeared in exhibits in the U.S. and Canada, such as at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, St. Norbert Arts Centre, The Wayne Arthur Gallery, Mesa Contemporary Arts, Tulsa International Mayfest, Tulsa Artist’s Coalition, Living Arts Gallery, Midcoast Fine Arts and Boston Artists Gallery. The artist now calls
Tucson her home, where she chooses to have no gallery representation.

Pyevich began painting in 1998, an abrupt turn from her established art career as a ceramic sculptress. It happened at the moment she was being launched by an online art sales gallery. Her work had been photographed, cataloged, priced and on the verge of going public. All the art pieces sat on shelves at her home. “I was having second thoughts about it, realizing my heart was in painting, not ceramics,” she recalls. Pyevich returned home that day to the disaster of collapsed shelves and piles of ceramic shards. Like the sound the crashing pottery made, then silence, Pyevich’s shock was followed by a recognition that she was free to paint.

At first, she delved into painting Jackson Pollock-like passion, maddeningly producing art while ingesting caffeine and listening to hard rock music. Consumed by the create-destroy-create cycle of this painting process, her inspiration began in the accidental overspray-created designs and patterns when coloring the ceramic art pieces. Pyevich produced bold, bright colors using lines as the essential element for intensifying abstract patterns. Like the ceramic period, her canvases caught on at numerous showings throughout Canada and the U.S., including Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Minnesota and Illinois. Her work was featured in magazines and galleries in Manitoba, Canada.

In time she cooled and grew in a contemplative direction. Her art followed. Transcendental love art began to appear on her canvases. “There is a love force that binds every living being in the universe,” she explains. “That energy is channeled through creativity in the form of beautiful imagery, music, dance, poetry and an array of other manifestations displaying spontaneous artistic expression.”

“Transcendental love art is my endeavor to connect with the love source by linking my consciousness with the reservoir or power source of love,” Pyevich says. “This inspiration comes from a devotional mood to devote the gifts I have been given to spread joy, upliftment, peace and deep satisfaction in others.”

The artist began to build her meditation practice around her painting creation process. Just as one never knows what insight or awareness will rise up in meditation, Pyevich delves into the canvas surface not knowing the nature of the image she will produce. “While preparing, creating and displaying my artwork, I immerse my mind, heart and consciousness in ancient Sanskrit mantras or mind-liberating prayers, to call on the divinity within and without, in an outpouring of loving affection.”

Her paintings are large, 30-by-50-inch canvases that fill the mind’s eye, overwhelming mundane thoughts to envelop the consciousness with serene, contemplative thoughts. “A Reiki healer described me as having the spirit of Demeter, the Greek goddess who provided the gift of soil and gentle, mild weather. She was a very hands-on and happy to help sort of Goddess,” describes Pyevich.

Like the myth of Demeter and Persephone, Pyevich continues to produce thematic series to realize a unity between her consciousness and her processes. “Intention is a constant flow where the spontaneity is important. There is no plan,” Pyevich says. “Eighty percent of the process is in the create-destroy-create-destroy process, and the last 20 percent is in cleaning the painting up.”

Pyevich is not a collector of her work, choosing to “spread the seed, let the grass grow on its own,” she paraphrases a Japanese Shinto parable. It has worked for her in the way that her paintings move into people’s homes and offices. “My art room is full of paintings, then it’s empty—space for me to fill with new paintings,” she says in an almost mystical way, describing her own realization of the parable.

The artist is working on a new series of light and reflection, which she imagines has texture and mood like dappled sunlight through opaque glass, but hasn’t found it through her brush. To find it, she’ll go into her meditation process, where the inner and the outer walk hand-in-hand with her art. “My works are spiritually based and aim to create a transcendental mood, a heartfelt expression,” she enthuses.

Caroline Pyevich art can be viewed at Pyevich.wix.com/carolineloveart#. Connect with her at [email protected].

Dale Bruder is a freelance writer interested in creative people, social and cultural movements and applications of ancient esoteric knowledge. Connect with him at 520-331-1956 or [email protected].