Paintings, Drawings & Sculptures

Artwork by Savanna. Inspired by Rainforest & the Caribbean Sea.

* In the left-side-bar you will now find my painting by their titles.

4' x 5' Oil painting "Discovery" Bottlenose Dolphin

I painted this piece after months of swimming with wild dolphins, and in particular one named Pita, off the outer Cayes of Belize, after a dream about her.

My first surprises - when getting to know this wonderful soul, was her facial expressions, which clearly showed in her moods, her laugh lines and the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, her vocals and her body language.  My second surprise was that I would learn her games…

The locals called her Pita or Honey.  She had lived alone in the area for over 24 years and it was suspected that her family had been lost to fishing nets.  She was well known and loved by the captain’s of local fishing and dive boats. And of those, she had her favorites that she would play with and show off for - others she would just ignore, no matter how much they coaxed and tried to get her attention. 
She was around 27 when our friendship began.

I’d had the wonderful experience of swimming with her while snorkeling and diving, but it wasn't until I was offered a project at Light House Reef Resort that swimming with her became our morning ritual.  I like to watch the sun come up and Pita was of the same mind.   Just before dawn - as I dangled my feet off the dock, she would slowly swim past and look up to my eyes, then lazily circle under the dock and brush my feet. Her morning greeting.  Silently willing me to finish my cup of tea and get into the sea to play (which by her expression - seemed to take forever).  At the time I wore a silver Indian ankle bracelet with dangles, every morning she would brush the bracelet to watch it sparkle, this became her way of saying, “Hello, I know you”. 

When my cup of tea was finished - I’d slip into the sea to play, and for the next hour or until my fingers were completely pruned she taught me her games.  Her favorite games from me, were anything that had to do with hands or feet, like the little kids game of church and steeple or a adapted under water version of the Charleston, goofy yes. But she thought hands and toes were the funniest things on earth.  The other games were keep-away or hide and seek with seaweed or objects - like a partially filled water bottle that had a neutral buoyancy.  I would tuck the bottle under a coral ledge or into the turtle-grass and it would stay put until it was bumped from its hiding place.  Usually she would hide it and I had to find it and she was good, sometimes too good having my human limitations. One day I hid it in the back elastic in my swimsuit bottoms and held out my hands as if it had vanished.  This she thought was very funny or possibly not exactly fair - so she went completely airborne then did the silliest dance of wiggles circling me.  Keep in mind I’m under water with a mask and snorkel. I laughed so hard at times that I would have to surface to keep from killing myself.  I'd float on my back catching my breath and she would surface beside me and laze about with me, just watching and hanging out.

After our wonderful months together, I was away for almost 2 years.  When I came back to visit her, she swam directly to my mask in the most aggressive manner as if she was on an attack, stopping inches from my mask to look me directly in the eye.  I stayed motionless for a moment watching her watch me, then as if to confirm my identity she darted straight down to my ankle to see if I still wore the old ankle bracelet. That did it.  She saw the bracelet, brushed it and swam noisy circles around me, brushing against me in the warmest Pita greeting.  It was an incredible feeling to be with my old friend again and have her remember our time together... damn leaky mask (I cried). 

Not long after this, she disappeared.  No news, no sightings, nothing.  As the months passed, and as we bumped into known friends of Pita, the question, “has anyone seen her” always came up.  Sadly, the answer was always “no”. We all feared the worst.

Months later came the news that one of the dive boats thought they spotted her down south at a distant uninhabited Caye.  They were fairly certain it was Pita but she did not approach them, as she usually would have.  They were worried that she was seriously ill.

A few slow months later, we discovered the real story; a beautiful young sexy male dolphin had left his pod to join her.  The next distant report was, that  “she was looking very round.”  A year or so later, she approached one of her favorite elated captains for a brief one on one play around his boat.  While in the distance - her mate and young-one circled lazily together, waiting while mommy played again. 
The Coconut Telegraph Buzzed.

The original painting Discovery is a part of my private collection (those paintings I can’t bring myself to part with for deeply personal reasons).  This is a portrait of sorts of Pita the Bottlenose Dolphin, a wonderful soul that taught me about her world and how we all connect.

During these dolphin days, Pita and other wild dolphins were frequently the characters in my dreams. In these dreams I wasn't an outsider, I was one of the pod - seeing the world and the reef through their eyes, experiencing life, the joys, tragedies, and the secrets.  In two of these dreams - Pita showed me their sacred places.
The first sacred place was where souls came to rest and be protected. I sat cross-legged on the sand and watched the calm surface waves sparkle in prisms across Pitas back, over the sandy seabed and off of the guarded souls that gently glowed from within.  I woke with the feeling that this dream was real…
This was my view, this is the painting Discovery.