Spirit Shaping, August 11 2018, The Anderson Gallery.
Oil paint on body on canvas, plants, clay, wax, wine and water.
Spirit Shaping is an 11 hr meditative, endurance ritual aimed at grounding myself in my body so that I may grasp my force (soul). Shaping comes after the awareness (groundedness). The awareness is then imbued into space and clay totems which are shared with the audience in the final hour to do with as they please. The final hour is the only time anyone else may enter the space.
If I pay attention I can feel my soul screaming.
I feel her force through my body.
How does your soul feel?
How do you nourish her?
Body as a medium - the intermediary substance through which messages are conveyed.
Spirit Shaping. Shaping - the external form or appearance/ a person or thing that is difficult to sense/ a mask.
Spirit Shaping as nourishment.
Can you feel my spirit?
Can you feel my soul through a form that is not my own?
And if you do, does that make the matter me?
Enki formed humankind from the blood of Kingu and clay.
Parvati formed Ganesh from the turmeric paste of her body, and her breath of life.
Then the Lord, God, formed wo(man) of dust from the ground and breathed life into her, creating a living soul.
Obatala saw his reflection, then took some clay from the edge of a body of water, and molded it into the same shape as his reflection. Later Olorun sent a fireball to Ife that baked Obatala's figures, and blew his breath across Ife to bring the first people to life.
Looking for a wife, Tāne made a woman by molding her from the soil who's ochre was still visibly stained red by the blood of him forcefully separating his mother from his father.
Broken Vulvas be the seed.
Blessed be the womb that bore thee.