EXHIBITS
Climate Park Project
April 7 - 22, 2021
I’m honored to be invited to participate in the first climate park in our nation. I’m a minimalist photographer and want to share the intimacy of my experience in nature. I approach my art meditatively, communing with the pregnant awareness that everything springs forth from. Upon being invited I explored the designated land. I could hear the steady knocking of wood echoing through the valley. Feeling the aliveness that moves me to photograph I discovered this busy bird storing up for winter on one of our non-indigenous eucalyptus trees. Ojai is known for its acorn woodpeckers that thrive in our oak tree covered valley. Due to many years in drought, both species are declining.
Ojai Valley Museum
The Birth of a Mother in Insight 20/20
September 1, 2020 - January 10, 2021
Digital Photography printed with Carbon on Cotton 40”x 20”
"Giving birth during a pandemic, a home birth at that, showed me how truly strong I am as a woman and now as a mother. Having Olivia is my greatest accomplishment in life.
My promise to her: My love for you is deeper and stronger than you will ever understand. May we navigate this thing called life with love and deep understanding. While you came from me, you are your own person, and I will continue everyday to learn your needs and desires, your wants and your dreams. Thank you sweet Olivia, for choosing me as your mother."
Cassidy Larson
City of Ojai Arts Gallery
Still Life with Andrea Haffner & Deborah Lyon
March 19, 2020 - February 20, 2021
The current exhibition at the City of Ojai Gallery at City Hall is a wonderful pairing of two accomplished Ojai artists, who celebrate natural forms and the peace to be found in contemplating nature. Both photographer, Deborah Lyon, and Andrea Haffner, an artist and jeweler, who works in resin, silver and forms form nature, have a quiet, meditative quality to their work. Objects are isolated and presented almost reverentially for our viewers. This is the art of solace and tranquility, exquisitely presented for us to ponder.
Deborah Lyon is a photographer in the minimalist style and a member of Ojai Studio Artists. She is celebrated for her insightful portraiture and delicate nature photography. Her work is exquisite in its execution; it emphasizes the beauty in Nature and is imbued with an otherworldly quality that seeks to explore the unknowables of life; the mysteries of creation and of purpose. The delicacy of her work invites us to be still, to move inward, and to contemplate. Symbolism features heavily in Lyon’s thoughtful work and the careful viewer may discern hints of Eastern philosophy in her approach. Plants especially represent for her a potent metaphor for the human emotional landscape.
Ventura County Museum
“Amidst Echoes” in Mending the Divide
February 29 - December 07, 2020
I’ve lived a fragmented life full of frozen moments in time waiting to be witnessed and integrated. Each and every moment that I was unable to fully honor and accept, seems to tirelessly ask for my attention until it’s given. I’ve discovered that creating space for myself, listening and welcoming, I free up my attention to direct however I choose.
We all carry many fragments from childhood far into adulthood. I believe we all live among echoes from our past. As we learn to heal ourselves, so too, we heal others, and ultimately our world.
Ojai Valley Museum
“Flower Sermon” in Origins
August 16 - October 14, 2019
One day, Śākyamuni Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) transmits direct prajñā (wisdom) to the disciple Mahākāśyapa.
In the original Sino-Japanese, the story is called nengemishō 拈花微笑, which means literally “pick up flower, subtle smile”.
In the story, Śākyamuni gives a wordless sermon to his disciples by gently holding up a most beautiful pure white flower.
No one in the audience understands except for Mahākāśyapa, who smiles.
Within Zen, this story communicates the ineffable nature of tathātā (suchness) and Mahākāśyapa’s smile signifies the direct transmission of wisdom without words.
Ojai Valley Museum
“Thomas Fire” in Scorched Souls
March 10 - June 17, 2018
The Thomas Fire, the largest wildfire in modern California history, burned approximately 440 square miles in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, December 4, 2017 – January 12, 2018.
At its height, it engaged 8,500 firefighters, the largest mobilization for any wildfire in California history. Ojai’s captain Tony McHale and his crew worked fearlessly throughout the conflagration.
Moonlight sustained a life-threatening injury to his cervical vertebrae during the fire. His owner Francesca Gershwin arranged vets, healers and caretakers to support his healing. He survived and is recovering. Francesca rescued Moonlight after his career ended as a race horse.
Therefore let your soul exhault your reason to the height of passion
That it may sing
and let it direct your passion with reason
That your passion may live through its own daily resurrection
And like a phoenix rise above its own ashes
- Kahlil Gibran