writer/gatherer
REVELATORY MASKS
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Revelatory Masks represents notions of inner identity. As nightgowns, masks, and various adapted garments, they function as wearable portraits of an otherwise hidden self. Sacred images and symbols adorning the nightgown and mask were inspired by the symbology of prehistoric European artifacts compiled by Marija Gimbutas in her book The Language of the Goddess. These works were worn in a sabbatical performance and incorporated into a sculptural installation at The Institute of American Indian Arts in 2012.
Symbols and images cluster around the parthenogenetic (self-generating) Goddess and her basic functions as Giver of Life, Wielder of Death, and, not less importantly, as Regeneratrix, and around the Earth Mother, the Fertility Goddess young and old, rising and dying with plant life. She was the single source of life who took her energy from from the springs and the wells, from the sun, moon, and moist earth. This symbolic system represents cyclical, not linear, mythical time. In art this is manifest in dynamic motion: whirling and twisting spirals, winding and coiling snakes, circles, crescents, horns, sprouting seeds and shoots.
- Marija Gimbutas