By Doris Faltys
I follow Heather Taylor upstairs to her studio, a cozy 12’ x 12’ room in her home. I ask her, “What do you want to talk about today Heather?” Heather responds, “I want to talk about my book, Love is a Circle.” While Heather Taylor has been working, painting murals of the natural environment, blue herons in flight, portraits, and personal mandalas, as well as creating 90+ ceramic wall pieces, her primary energy has focused recently on the creation of a children’s book, Love is a Circle.
“The beauty is that it combines separate facets of my art career.” Heather says. She explains that the illustrations for her book are of children and that she uses sacred geometry in her designs. “What do you mean sacred geometry?” Heather responds, “universal patterns that are exposed when we magnify or reduce scale.” The paintings for her book are of children in nature. Heather speaks about the patterns of color and shape she has placed in the backgrounds of each of her illustrations. On the microscopic level there are common patterns or combinations of patterns which appear in everything. A basic make up of all creation. She adds, “sacred geometry has been a part of spiritual tradition since before Pythagoras. The reason I like it, is it is a universal language. I am using basic geometric shapes that are the building blocks for creation and whether or not people consciously recognize that, they will relate to them.”
Heather Taylor strives to bring our connectedness to each other, to ourselves, to our children, our religion, and to our natural environment down to the cellular level. A unity that she feels can be depicted visually though the use of patterns of shapes and placement of images. She hopes to create in the viewer the recognition that we are all connected. This recognition she hopes will create a feeling of love. She believes that the patterns are a representation of love. “Connecting humanity through our love for our children and the recognition of unity as expressed through sacred geometry,” she adds.
Heather grew up in a family that valued art, religion, creativity, and social / environmental justice. She remembers spending lots of time making art when she was 5. “My mother is an artist. She was taking art classes and my sister and I did the homework with Mom.” In high school, Heather was drawn to learning about women, the Earth, Indigenous peoples, evolution, and religion. “My twin sister and I were exposed to many different religious beliefs, so that we could discover our own beliefs.” Heather says that she naturally noticed and sought similarities in religious, philosophical, and artistic traditions. Her art work over the years is a chronicle of her search for ways to visually depict images of unity, images that will unify.
Heather graduated from TESC with a BA in Art History and a BS in Psychology. She has been a professional artist for 19 years. She recently had a one woman show in Venice Beach, CA. Kristine Wallis of the Wallis Talent Agency in Burbank, CA says that after meeting Heather through a mutual friend she coordinated a show for Heather at the Mystic Journey Bookstore / Gallery in Venice, CA. Ms. Wallis quotes the store manager, “without question, the finest art we have ever shown,” Kristine says, “everyone including myself is blown away by Ms. Taylor’s talent. She has a unique approach, a vision and knows how to put that vision into concrete form into her painting and sculpture.”
I sit in Heather’s studio room surrounded by the paintings that make up the illustrations for her book. The colorful geometric patterns in the background of the paintings keep my eyes moving from painting to painting around the room. As Heather talks about scared geometry, these patterns depicted in art over centuries of time, of her love of children, her love of the natural world, and her belief in unity, I think I may have some understanding of what she is trying to convey. The children in her paintings represent that magic, that energy that children exude where potential is boundless. An energy or boundless potential that does exist. What if we could physically grab and hold that energy, that cellular unity? If it could be held onto physically as easily as holding our children, imagine the possibilities!
Heather Taylor’s art work can been found all around the greater Olympia area. Her murals and paintings can be seen in hospitals, clinics, schools, libraries, government buildings, and the Splash Artists Coop Gallery of which Heather is a founding member. Heather Taylor can be reached at: fullcirclemandalas@comcast.net www.fullcirclemandalas.com (360) 359-1522
