My Story

Bonnie D. Parker

One of my journeys started on the moors outside of Haworth, England when I was 22 years old. I was fortunate to receive a literary fellowship through my university, and thanks to a generous man by the name of Mr. Charles F. Green III, I was able to travel via The Michael D. Wentworth Student Travel Fellowship to study all I could of Emily Bronte. On this trip I spent eight hours on the windy, beautifully bleek, moors climbing up to Top Withens, also known to many as Wuthering Heights.

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I took photos of my uncertain path while surrounded by hundreds of sheep with their lambs in the spring of 2005. It wasn't until I reached Top Withins that I was able to sucessfully reach out and touch one of the young sheep with my hand. This is what made my journey real. This painting is the first of my many animal focuses.

The inspiration for my work is the acknowledgement of animals as equal and individual beings, and what their expression might ask of us. Wild Oakview Studio is born out of a combination of my libral arts education, wildlife rehabilitation training and painting instruction experience, which allows my perspective as an artist to remain, in my opinion, open. Painting is how I beg the question, "What is my role as a human in the eyes of wildlife? What should it ought to be?"

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Last week I met a talkative man who asked me what I do for a living. I told him I instruct painting classes. He said, "So you're an artist. I think artists see into other dimensions." He was being very generous, but I told him, "No, not me; I just simplify what I see." But I don't know, maybe he is right; I'd like to create a quiet, not so distant world.