My writer friend Linda Meadowcroft has just released her compelling and meticulously researched biography, Ghost Eagles: The Spirit Journey of Artist Jan Beaver Gallione. I wish for better skills in what I call, “writing about writing,” to communicate my excitement and gratitude for what Linda has accomplished. I have been a witness to this material as Linda has developed it through the years and I don’t have words to express my admiration for, not only her skills, but the dogged determination she has displayed in persisting for many years through untold challenges to bring this beautiful volume into being.
Linda and I met in Pittsburgh nearly 20 years ago in Oct of 2005 at an artist’s workshop titled My Own Spirit Art, organized by Dan and Patsy Siemasko. A dozen or so of us gathered in their home to focus on spiritual art, on what I would now call, artmaking as a spiritual practice. Linda’s established claim as an artist to that point was as a violinist, while mine was as a dancer, improv teacher and performer. Yet both of us were working on early versions of books–in my case the first snippets of Warrior Mother. I still have a mimeographed invitation to a session Linda was planning at the time based on an early version of her current book.
As Shakespeare has suggested, there have been through the years, “many forces operating besides our devotion” to our individual work. Linda begins the introduction to her work with “I never met Jan Beaver, though I suppose you could say we were introduced by my dog Roxie.” Then follows an endearing story of how Linda’s ill-manner dog pulled her into a section of recently introduced native plants in Mellon Park and a plaque honoring “artist, poet, and educator Jan Beaver.” The lettering contained a tribute to her work on the Ghost Eagle Mounds in Wisconsin which she is credited with resurrecting. Linda knew nothing of the artist or her accomplishments but, I suppose we could say, how forceful the power of curiosity, and the blessings that accrue to the artist who follows that force.
Linda’s deep exploration of the extraordinary life of a single artist illustrates for me the paradox that the more personal the story, the more universal. Linda finds many similarities with her own story as she learns more about Jan’s and we readers will as well. Secondly, as we learn details of how the artist in Ghost Eagles used her art to process her life, and the losses and trials of her day, she takes us with her, encouraging us to courageously care about what needs to be most important to us in our own time.
Linda and I have stayed in touch all these years not simply because of our mutual interest in writing, in preserving the natural world, and in Native American culture. Something happened the day after we first met that has insured our connection would be lifelong. It’s known as a “Pittsburgh Thing,” but another woman named Linda introduced me to her neighbor, Pamela Meadowcroft, and she turned out to be Linda’s sister, who became, with her husband, a member of my improv troupe and to this day, one of my best friends. So, its’ really all these connections that help books happen and get out into the world, especially by people talking about them and recommending them to their friends and acquaintances. I hope you will check out Linda’s book for yourself and become part of spreading the word about this book and the needed messages it contains.
Ghost Eagles: The Spirit Journey of Artist Jan Beaver Gallione https://amzn.to/4aOou87
