TWYLA ELLIS
Internationally Recognized, Featured and Awarded Photographer
New York Times Published Photographer
Everyday Birth Magazine Published Photographer
“I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here, it's like I'm someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around, I swear I'll leave
Won't take nothin' but a memory
From the house that built me”
Miranda Lambert | The House that Built Me
The forest saved me. It awakened something within me that I had all but forgotten. My deep longing and connection to nature. This is so far beyond “ya, I like to go camping for two weeks every summer”, or “taking a walk in the park is comforting for me”.
No. This is like a remembering. I am of the tree people. Somewhere in my ancestry we foraged and lived in the woods. Every cell in my body remembers it. It can’t be explained. It just is.
The forest. My teacher, my savior, my church. I arrived to Her broken and emerged from the roots changed.
Calgary, Canada is home. From there my husband and I moved to Toronto, Canada and after being there for two years I had never known such darkness. Although that time in Toronto was incredibly hard, I lost a pregnancy, any sense of direction, and hope. Art found me and I found a tiny bit of light. From there we moved to the old-growth forest outside of Seattle, WA and this beautiful journey of healing began. The forest literally built me. The unfurling ferns, the towering pines, the death and rebirth cycle played out right there on the forest floor, the way the light moved through the forest, the sounds of the creek that ran through our land, the smell, god the smell. I would walk barefoot on the paths cut through that old-growth forest, running my hands along the trees and listening as She spoke, the whisper. I miss Her. Those six years I would trade for absolutely nothing. But, as with everything, change is inevitable. I left there with my heart crushed but with this fire ignited inside that is everliving, my magick. Denver CO was next for us and was that a trrrip! Our three years there rocked me. As with every place we live in and leave, it taught me something. I left there reminded of exactly.who.I am. With that all too familiar stirring, this time it was the ocean calling me, I couldn’t let it go and so I called Her in again in the form of water. Florida answered. Although we couldn’t be further from the PNW, it rains here, as it is right now as I sit here reminiscing. These rains bring me right back to the forest where I would dance in the rain with complete abandon. Face upturned, arms stretched wide, pure bliss.
I wish I could go back, sit with the winds, feel the earth beneath my feet, smell the rain, and hear Her again. In the house that built me.
“I am first a human, a seeker of truth, a keeper, a steward of Earth, and a witness to the full spectrum of life and death. I create with an aligned purpose, in flow. I intuitively honor the calling within, to be an observer of truth, and a storyteller through creative expression in many forms and with many mediums. My art is energy manifested. It is the calling on and the conjuring of light, of Source.”
Our Woven Womb
-
I am first a human, a seeker of truth, a keeper, a steward of Earth, and a witness to the full spectrum of life and death. I create with an aligned purpose, in flow. I intuitively honor the calling within, to be an observer of truth, and a storyteller through creative expression in many forms and with many mediums. My art is energy manifested. It is the calling on and the conjuring of light, of Source. I am an extension of Source, rooted and safe. My canopy outstretched, broken and healed, thriving and symbiotic. A place of life, death, and rebirth. Sheltered and exposed, weathered and worn sacrificing one part for the whole. A gathering place, refuge.
My art is for no one and everyone, it is for myself but does not belong to me. I am not defined by my art, my art is me. A dichotomy. Polarized and charged simultaneously. Multifaceted and singular. Purposefully imperfect. My body of work, a collection of deeply moving raw authenticity, an unapologetic telling of a moment in time. My active participation in, the answering of, and yearning for, the deep knowing etched on my bones promises my art will always find the light. It will always be needed and will always be available to those who experience my art, my work, me. My work changes narratives and perceptions, it challenges what is possible and societal expectations, it is anticipated and desired, it lingers. My art is synonymous with a whisper, with a nudge, to answer the stirring within. It is an invitation to nurture and cultivate.
I observe the human story, the universal language of vulnerability and resilience, and the intangible. My work is longevity, multigenerational, revered, preserved, valued, tattered edges, fingerprints, worn corners, desired, needed, and nostalgic.
I am committed to raw and vulnerable connection with each person I share space with. I show up wholly and completely in my wholeness and brokenness to honor your whole and broken self. A real, tangible experience, a core memory woven into your life fabric that awakens and inspires you. To reflect back to you the whole and parts of yourself, seen and unseen. To stir up emotion, inspire growth, a catalyst for self-exploration. The recognition and honoring of you as a whole human is met with deep respect for your unique and divine journey.
I will forever and always be seeking out and conspiring for, with hopeless optimism that the embodiment and full realization of my truth, my purpose, and my art is already being lived out.
My art resonates with the awakened. They are drawn to me. I am a beacon. What is afforded to me is already mine.
I will write, I will sketch, I will paint, I will create. I will return to my resting place surrounded by my ancestors embedded in the forest floor. I will walk, barefoot once again through their roots of wisdom. I will forage and find sustenance within Her. My daughter will remember Her, she will feel Her and she will follow Her. This work I do affords me the promise to spin this life for us into existence.