Description
The I Ching trigrams positioned at the bottom of the painting symbolize Heaven at the right and Lake at the left. By combining these trigrams so that Heaven is at the bottom and Lake at the top, the 43rd hexagram, Resolution, is formed.
Due to Ute Mountain’s mystical nature, and that it is a key feature of the Ute Mountain Tribe, I selected Ute Mountain as the landform for the expression of Heaven within the Lake. The starry night with a crescent moon expresses Heaven while the mountain embraces the Lake.
The black bear, here representing Resolution, is one of the major totem animals of the Ute Mountain Tribe. Moving from left to right, these images of the bear illustrate transition from reality to major importance as a Native American totem and reveal the human impulse to appreciate the power inherent in animal symbolism.
As in all these paintings, the four- cornered square at the bottom middle of the lower I Ching design symbolizes the Four Corners area while the red dot in the upper right of the square indicates that this scene is in Colorado.
