Patti and I have greatly enjoyed conversing about the multimedia arts. In getting to know her better, I have discovered that she has a deep affinity for the natural world. As an avowed conservationist, Patti often chooses nature as a subject for her artwork. She also informs me that she loves to be outside in the garden... and delights in planting luscious gardens that offer food and host plants for butterflies and other small creatures. This symbiosis serves as a miraculous blessing for humans and butterflies alike.

Patti: Humans are graced with the presence of delicate, elfin, winged forms, and the habitats of butterflies are protected.

Loren: I love the luminosity of your painting: Thorne's Hairstreaks Return and your other works because they create the visual impression of delving into other worlds.

Patti: The green background of the painting Thorne's Hairstreaks Return depicts the Tecate Cypress, which is the host plant of this butterfly species. Both the Thorne's Hairstreak butterfly and the Tecate Cypress tree are native only to San Diego County, California. Thorne's Hairstreak butterflies have been endangered for over twenty years, and the Tecate Cypress is a rare native tree.

Loren: Your in-depth communion with Mother Nature seems like a romantic fling that may even have the nature spirits wondering about her unbridled joy!

Patti: My communion with nature encourages an association in which natural forms speak to me as living entities. Connecting with nature is connecting with love and meditation. Nature is who and what I am. This is how I'm sustained. I can't imagine life without this deep connection to nature.

Loren: Can you tell me a bit more, please, about your experiences delving into other spiritual dimensions.

Patti: I enjoy the experience of creating. There is a feeling of lightness. Inspiration emerges as a connection to a seemingly timeless energy. I enter into a different world and something is drawn to me, something comes through me, as the sense of time and self-consciousness of being a body in space disappear!

Patti Boekhoff with Thorne's Hairstreak Returns

Loren: What I love about the Thorne's Hairstreak painting and many of your other paintings are that they seem larger than life. I am reminded of something Pablo Picasso once said: "Everything you can imagine is real!" I understand the inner glow that you are graced with! I see that you have been smiling inwardly all along! There is magic here. The magic is within both the inmost being of the sacred form of the goddess and the inner sanctum of the painting itself.

Patti: The real surprise is that if the viewer looks very closely, you can see two humanlike forms in the Cypress buds, and two butterflies enfolded together. The forms are very subtle, but if you slow down to look they will appear.

Loren: Would you agree that to the extent humans are able to connect with nature, also mirrors their ability to embody the deepest parts of themselves?

Patti: My vision for humanity is that we come back into the realm of loving and respecting nature and each other, our existence here. To return from the brink of extinction, as these butterflies did, I feel we need to return to our connection with Mother Earth. This includes both a reverie and reverence for our lives, here and now. In the deepest part of ourselves, we are nature. My spirit is as much a part of nature as my body is.

Loren: In your opinion, what is your most in-depth experience of enlightenment?

Patti: Probably the most enlightening part of my existence is a part that I don't know about yet!

(I feel like I've just been checkmated by the Goddess. Still, there is a lot more feisty energy that we can share. My next question brings to mind a hummingbird I once glimpsed, darting across a lush summer meadow, sipping flower nectar point to point.)

Loren: Well, Patti, what is your game plan to discover aspects of enlightenment that you claim you may not be aware of?

Patti: My life is my art, my self-portrait. When I paint portraits, each one is very different. The soulful feeling of each subject, in each moment, evokes a unique experience. A pencil portrait can capture the feeling in an hour, or an oil portrait may be a study of a person over several months of sittings.

Loren: I am thinking of your colorful self-portrait. In my experience, its beauty greatly compliments our surroundings.

Patti: Creating this work helped me to become grounded in the present in a very physical way.

Loren: How long did it take you to make this self-portrait?

Patti: A few hours.

Loren: I really want to acknowledge you for your dedication to sharing both the beauty of Nature and your innermost soul. I wish you every success in your artistic endeavors.

Patti: Thank you. I'm looking forward to sharing more of my work with a wider audience... I'll let you know more about my plans to exhibit in the future.

End of interview

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