Noël Bennett
Artwork International | New Mexico
Noël Bennett’s abstract art shimmers with colour and texture. It speaks from a shift in consciousness she had while living with the Diné (Navajo) for eight years.
Noël came to Dinétah in 1967 with advanced degrees in art from Stanford University. She had graduated with distinction and studied with Richard Diebenkorn. Once on Navajo land, she took up weaving. As she sheared sheep and dyed wool, she saw that what the Western world and Stanford valued had no relevance here. For instance, there was no word in the Navajo language for “Art.” Or “Religion.” The words were absent because there was no distinction between how one leads one’s daily life and how one functions as a spiritual being. Indeed, Being becomes “Art.” Following directives such as speaking from the heart or remaining silent, disempowering time, seeing beyond people and entities into the spaces and dynamics between them, all require relinquishing foundational strictures. This is especially true of experiencing ourselves as indistinguishable from the beauty-balance-blessing of our cosmos.
In 1985 Noël chanced on and set out to protect an amphitheater of spires in the high-mountains of New Mexico. International volcanologists call Cathedrals Canyon the best window into the Valles Caldera eruptions that exist. In collaboration with the Ansel Adams family, Noël procured a National Endowment for the Arts grant for A Place in the Wild – Gentle Architecture for Fragile, Natural Places. The study led to hand-building two demonstration structures that open humans to nature and protect nature from humans. One, an observation platform inlaid with a mere 4” damage margin. The other, an environmental straw-bale home and studio nearby. The goal is to procure funding for an interpretive center on canyon rim to offer an integrative view of Human/Nature.
Writing. Building in Nature. Weaving. Metalworking. Painting. Heartfelt immersions unify Noël’s lifework. In her studio, layers of textured iridescence build on each other until a non-erosive mesa, a mountain, Mother Earth emerges from the canvas and monumentally rises to meet (and mate) Father Sky. Noël‘s four-decades-long series, The Infinite Moment, honors the sacredness of this union. At its core is clarity that for humans and all of life to flourish, female and male energies must be in balance. Underscoring this truth, akin to a visual mantra each work manifests the archetypal T. Taw: Interstice of Horizontal & Vertical. Unity out of duality. “Not two but One.” Beauty. Balance. Blessing.
Noël’s recent paintings sum up life experience and clarify her intention.” They are subtitled, simply. I am the Mountain.
Noël has published ten books and given over 200 multimedia presentations to conferences, museums and universities across the United States. A traveling museum exhibition, We are the Mountain, is slated for 2025.
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