Erase the lines: I pray you not to love classifications.
  The thing is like a river, from source to sea-mouth
  One flowing life.

-       Robinson Jeffers, Monument

Artist Statement: 

Since childhood, my life and art have been nourished and inspired by time in wild places, by cycles larger than the concerns of man. The silence and sense of deep peace that I find in wild places, and yes even the great struggle to cling to life, the  precious gift of life, are at the center of my work. I try to express reverence for the mystery and beauty of wild places. I try, I paint over and over, in  an effort to honor the places I love and the sense of freedom I've found there.

Robinson Jeffers' words capture my imagination. I think I know what he means. In my art, I try to flow, to capture the essence and spirit of that great flowing life, of struggle and silence and peace. I try to express the spirit and essence rather than the details which often distract. Even the river, from source to sea-mouth, has a life, a search for the Great Waters beyond.

Capturing that in painting is what Robert Henri describes in his book The Art Spirit as "the magnificent struggle.”

. . .

Roderick MacIver published the art journal Heron Dance for twenty-five years (now an e-journal), has been a fulltime working artist for thirty years and has authored several books on the creative process, the beauty and mystery of wild nature and of life, and books about the human search for meaning.

Partial List of Credits

Books

• Gifts from the Mountain: Simple Truths for Life's Complexities
  by Eileen McDargh. Published by Barrett-Koehler.

• Kristin's Wilderness by Garrett Conover. Published by Raven Words.

• Wilderness Management: Stewardship and Protection of
        Resources and Values Third Edition. By John C. Hendee and Chad P. Dawson.
        Published by Fulcrum Publishing. 

North Atlantic Books has republished many of the Heron Dance Press formerly out-of-print books. These include:

• The Heron Dance Book of Love & Gratitude

• Art as a Way of Life

• Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence

• Thoreau and The Art of Life

• The Laws of Nature

• Earth My Likeness.

Other books published by Heron Dance Press containing the art and writing of Roderick MacIver

• Art Is About The Mystery

• The Journey Itself Is Home Book Arts Collection
  (clamshell limited edition of 300 copies, $1200 per copy, sold out)

• Maniacs Seeking The New Encounter

• Nurturing The Song Within (To be released in early May 2024)

  Two book set but can be used independently: Art Journal and Diary Planner

• The Man Who Planted Trees

• Pausing For Beauty; The Heron Dance Poetry Diary

• The Song I Came To Sing

• Wild Waters And The Tao (sold out; a new edition is in the works)

  Magazines, Calendars and Catalogs

Bioneers Conference Catalog

           Choices One Day At A Time

Earthlight

            Earth Island Journal

            EverChanging

            Fish & Fly

            Friends Journal

Ministry of the Arts

Nastagan, The Journal of the Wilderness Canoe Association

Plough Magazine

            One Spirit Catalog

Pomegranate 2008 Calendar

Progressive Christian

            ROWE Conference Center

            Spirit and Nature

            Timberlake Farm

            Wild Earth

Wooden Canoe  

Zen Mountain Monastery 

Wilderness Protection Groups

  Ministry of the Arts

  Northeast Wilderness Trust

   RESTORE: The North Woods

   Raincoast Conservation Society

   Sky Island Alliance

   The Wild Foundation

Heron Dance has donated thousands of notecards to wilderness protection groups for their correspondence and dozens of signed, limited-edition prints and the use of art to these groups. More information can be found by visiting the Heron Dance website and entering nonprofit in the search bar.

 Collections

  Numerous private collections

  Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, Oregon

Roderick MacIver founded Heron Dance, an art and literary publication, in early 1995.