Through some mix of leaps and clicks, I found Terri St. Cloud and Bone Sigh Arts a year or so ago. The feelings her work evoked slid between words and dodged their usual emotional barriers, and I found her imaginative agility profound.  On her site she describes her art as “sighs from my depths, sighs from my very bones.”  I knew exactly what she meant and the pain that can come from being that reed.  Social networking kept me abreast of new artistic releases, but a wild little twist of fate introduced me to her formally a little over a week ago. It is my pleasure to gift her to my readers now.

When Kelley asked me if I’d be interested in writing a ‘guest insight’ dealing with the spiritual nature of my work, I was intrigued. Did I even have any insights? I toyed with the idea a bit. How do I explain my heart stuff? And then I thought of something I wrote once:

“i want my heart to open, and open, and open, ’cause i think god’s in there.’

Yeah, that’d probably be my insight. That whatever happens inside my heart, when I connect to it and open it and offer it–that’s where I touch the sacred. It happens when I create my bone sighs, the name I give my creations. And it happens when I offer them to the world. There is as much power in the offering as there is in the creating. And I’m thinking that deal is probably the same for everyone.

Holiness by Terri St. Cloud

I stumbled into this whole way of life in the darkest time I’ve ever experienced. I wrote to stay sane, adding art to the words was my way of honoring them.   That’s another insight I have at times and then I lose again–in the darkness, there is gold. We don’t need to be frightened of it. That truth slips out of my fingers too often, but I believe it and I’ve experienced it. There’s magic in the dance, even the dark parts. Maybe especially in the dark parts.

Those two thoughts mix together in my work… and my life.

terri st. cloud is a woman on a journey to find real.
you can find pieces of her journey at Bone Sigh Arts.  her latest release is her white tree,  sharing words and symbols of regrowth to women who have suffered trauma.  follow terri @terristcloud and on Facebook.

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