Janet Parker Vaughan

Seven Shifts Janet Parker Vaughan

Seven Shifts is about the mystery and puzzle of perception: how we begin to see, understand and integrate the world around us; how we are changed by the myriad experiences of childhood; how we emerge and evolve into our own story, mythology. Though perceived by a specific child in a specific place and time, transformed by imagination and language, this re-visioning of powerful memories reaches far beyond any specificity. It resonates on multiple frequencies and reminds us what it meant to discover moments, people, events and objects that altered us irrevocably. In Seven Shifts we see how we are in relation to our environment (natural, domestic, social, cultural) and to others (family, friends, strangers, teachers), but most importantly we learn how we are in relation to ourselves. Lyrical, sensory, impressionistic, tonal, Seven Shifts creates a sensation that reveals not so much a losing of innocence (though there is that, too), but a finding of wisdom. There are gifts and dangers in revelation; the child's response to this paradox in Seven Shifts is the essence of becoming a human being.