Marge Forest

Forest Ridge Pottery

Imagine that the objects in this exhibit were acquired from a newly discovered culture. You are confronted with determining how this culture differs from ours. What is their lifestyle, what are their values? If you were to have continued contact, what might you learn from them and what might they learn from you?

To assist you with this exercise, imagine the excerpts and poems found by the pieces are brought back by the first explorers. What do they tell us of the daily existence, material and spiritual, of this newly discovered culture?

Amelia

Tender, Strong
   Loving Muscles
      Ready to Soar

  Potent Spirit
Quivering on the Edge
  of Endless Horizons
     Breathless
For the Ecstasy
     of Flight

Marge Forest
©1981

"Art reflects this culture's love of nature. Their values are symbolically represented in organic forms. Where possible, they attempt to achieve a union of function and form. Gardens are considered growing and changing works of art, and plant forms are used throughout the culture."
(Excerpt from Explorer's Report)

"The Flower image is a symbol of beauty, receptivity and fertility - an embryo container and nourished. Flower totems often contain this image, and together with totem songs at the entrances to the communal homes, form part of the greeting ritual. Other symbolic forms found in their art include budding and fruiting images representing fertility and nurturing. Winged plant forms represent freedom of spirit and non-material experiences, antennae and tendrils represent a constant search for new sensory experience."
(Excerpt from Explorer's Report)