SACRED

(In Chapel/Chapter) you see the dancers, but then beyond them, you see people in your community all bearing witness to the same thing. It's designed to evoke something of the world that we all share and the terrible things that are happening to other people we are curious about but don't understand. For me this is what makes a spiritual space in the world today.

What do I hold sacred? I hold sacred what has been given in trust: the environment and a memory of home. Like most collections, these biscuit tins advertising an ideal world, were recognized in memory. The gathering and arrangement of this ephemera, parallels my concern with collections of natural detritus in other artwork, and grew as connections were made to the living environment and recurring memories. A desire for order in my home and studio means each tin holds other collections, from buttons and threads (saved like my mother's), my tins hold spices and recipes in the kitchen (also like her's), floral and animal costume jewelry in my bedroom, and collections of postcards, plant and animal specimens or other reference objects and images in my studio. My Garden Paradise (Contained) speaks of my desire for an ordered and contained, eternally blooming garden paradise of my home and working life.

The Arts serve to define the human condition, as people seek experiences of the heart, mind and spirit. An artist’s search is for truth, beauty, awareness. In this context, the word sacred speaks to reverence and the protection of these precious values. As a creator, performer and producer I deeply value the ritual of bringing diverse and often disparate groups of people together, to gather and share in artistic experiences, to experience face to face or side by side the alchemy of interaction and exchange. This is what I hold sacred.

Mind, body and soul unite in a single space, embodying movement and music, producing an intersection of the three cultural streams of India, China and the Middle East in a mystical dance piece evoking the enigma of the full and complete void — shunya.

The distribution of 10,000 saris in a small village in southern India as documented by multi-media artist, Nathalie Latham. This film sequence of women waiting to receive a sacred gift from Sri Amma Narayani, considered a living deity celebrates the notion of joy which exists in giving to and serving others. "Happiness is derived from when we do something for ourselves, it is limited. Joy is when we give to or share with others. Experiencing joy is limitless. The idea is to aim for joy."

transmission of the invisible
sacred
creativity
creative spirit
nature
life-force
love

"In Oh, Mother my interest is the strange space in which the entity of the mother exists. There is this tension that surrounds the mother; all at once sacred and exalted yet simultaneously hysteric. She is worshipped yet her mistakes, her simple flaws, make her fall from grace all the more tragic. She is romantic and nostalgic; a perfectly crafted vision of the past, of the life you have lived, of how you were made. She is mysterious and complex, heavy with emotion. The mother becomes this myth, a sort of exaggerated image of herself and of all the contradictory qualities that have come to define her. In essence the mother is beautifully flawed, because she is irrevocably human."