We Contain Multitudes: Deb Zwetsch and Zan Lombardo

Opening Reception: February 2, 5-7pm • See it first. See it free. This event is open to the public. Come meet your neighbors at this free event!

Deb Zwetsch and Zan Lombardo built a relationship as collaborative artists to specifically create the work for this show. They have channeled multitudes together. Harnessing watercolor paints and liquid silk dyes, they offer artworks of imbibition, created by trusting The Flow, the egoless flow, with as much enthusiasm and unconditional love and trust as they could muster.

Elusive skunk apes peer between the trunks of pines, saw palmettos and bald cypress trees. The abecedarium of the animals of the Everglades, a veritable yearbook of character portraits of local mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects, is juxtaposed with a litany of leftovers from the trauma of Hurricane Ian. The moon in all its phases is featured as it influences all creatures and phenomena of the natural world. Human figures wear the silken skins of other beings as they interact with them, whether that be listening to the choruses of frogs in the rain, considering the fecundity of a rookery, facing the imposing mass of a brown bear, darting from the silver spears of mullet schools, or gasping at a graceful nest of snakes. The artists show them embodied, not separate.

The artists’ lived experience is that the heart is a vulnerable engine. The energies it circulates traverse in curves and circuits, spiraling and eddying with lines, shapes, textures, and colors. The enormity of what is present fills walls and rooms, some things rearranged by hurricane force gales, but thankfully more often by gentle breezes. Their focus is on both microcosm and macrocosm, inner and outer. To experience the whole planet as a sentient being, one must first find oneself in relationship with all, welcoming the multitudes with open heart, open head, and open arms. 

Collaboration is not to be undertaken by the weak or faint of heart. Collaborative struggle has required enormous amounts of flexibility and integrity. The result is concrete, visible evidence that channeling the Creation together is possible. The artists’ intentions are for their artworks to embrace this resplendence and acknowledge that life is overwhelmingly abundant and well worth their effort, laughter, and tears. They remind us to be humble and to keep expanding out into the universe.