Notes

people need rituals to mark passages of lifeand death. go somewhereand do something to mark the loss

Rituals mark the passage of time.  Birthdays

Leaving coins on a grave - originates from Greek Mythology, paying ones way to a resting place in the under world Hades, place coin in mouth, no coin and you were left to wander and haunt in the upper world.

Coins on eyes.
coins at feet.

Burial customs of Romans:
-The soul thought to need provisions in afterlife, ground above tomb laid out as a garden (Egyptians), the spirit may wander about and enjoy.
-Cenotaph - an empty tomb for someone who died at sea.

Healing Machines

The need that we have to make environments intrigues me.  Whether it be the work of one person, with their own rules, or the work of many people who are following a plan.

"In the early 1960s, Blagdon built a two-part shed behind his house. The small entry served as his workshop and the larger space behind became an increasingly dense environment filled with his creations. He illuminated the site with strings of Christmas tree lights and hand-painted light bulbs in coffee can fixtures attached to the floor. Inspired in part by having watched his parents die of cancer, Blagdon worked for nearly thirty years on sculptures and paintings he described as Healing Machines. He didn’t consider himself an artist. Instead, he was fascinated by electricity and what he saw as its potential for healing at a time when “electropathy” was widely sought as a form of alternative healing. He believed that through the complex and diverse materials in the shed he could channel the powers of the earth, with the potential to cure various illnesses."  - from Emory Blagdon, Healing Machines by Mark Karpel.  Source is Spaces.  Link here. 

Ritual and Site

Why the need for site and object?  Objects serve as symbols for stories – stories are the belief system – objects acknowledge the belief system.  Is it the person/people who formulate the belief system that use site and objects as control?  Or is it our human sensual need for touch and seeing that that require we have something to hold, something to look at, a place to be?  Conclusion – I am interested in both aspects – how/why we make our own significant moments and how/why we buy into those that are set up for us. Also, our need to mark space and time. 

A bit of notes from looking around on-line:

People need rituals to mark passages of life and death. 

People need to go somewhere and do something to mark a loss or celebrate the new.  

Objects (souvenirs to be kept in remembrance of event - need tangible to remember - later photography becomes object) or objects used to perform ritual.  Space, gathering site needed to mourn or celebrate.  Marking the passage of time.  Recognize emotion.  Gather together or alone. 

Rituals mark the passage of time.  Birthdays, anniversaries.

Leaving coins on a grave - originates from Greek Mythology, paying ones way to a resting place in the under world Hades, place coin in mouth, no coin and you were left to wander and haunt in the upper world. 

Coins then moved to be placed on eyes, then feet and then grave.

Burial customs of Romans:

-The soul thought to need provisions in afterlife, ground above tomb a garden so spirit may wander about and enjoy.  

-Cenotaph - an empty tomb for someone who died at sea, the need to mark a space, the need for a site and the tangible.

Inhumation begins Paleolithic era.  Practical or esoteric - it is unclear.  Later peoples believed humans formed out of the earth, so possible giving back to earth was significant.

Interesting bits of info the above book.  Read for free on google.  Link here. 

SENSE OF PLACE

Notes from 
Wisdom Sits In Place 
by Keith H. Basso

"Place is the first of all beings, since everything that exists is in a place and cannot exist without a place" -Archytas, Commentary on Aristotle's Categories

"lived relationships that people maintain with places, for it is solely by virtue of these relationships that space acquires meaning"

"...familiar places are experienced as inherently meaningful, their significance and value being found to reside in (and, it may seem, to emanate from) the form and arrangement of their observable characteristics."

"places come to generate their own field of meaning."

"Even in total stillness, places may seem to speak."  "places express only what their animators enable them to say" - linking to reflection

The Dance, Historic Illustrations, by An Antiquary

Objects needed to make music.

Space needed to perform.

Costumes needed to adorn human body - or disguise.

Source link here.

In and Out of the Martial Bed by Diane Wolfthal

Well, a sick child and piled up grading cut my endeavor of making something for 30 days short. I made it further than I thought I would, so maybe that is worth something. Anyway, back in the studio today.

I have been interested in the history of the bed for a long time - finally found a book that is a wonderful read and great source of information.

"This book explores images whose sexual content has all too often been either ignored or denied. Each chapter is devoted to a place that artists associated with sexual activity or desire: the bed, the dressing area of the home, the window and doorway, the bath, and the street. By examining both canonical works, such as Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait and Petrus Christus’ Goldsmith’s Shop and long-neglected objects, such as combs, badges, and bathhouse murals, and by investigating a wide range of sexualities—same-sex desire, adultery, marriage, courtship, and prostitution—Wolfthal demonstrates how illicit forms of sexuality were linked to the “chaste sexuality” of marriage." - source is Yale University Press.

From the book, "...combs were personal objects that came in intimate contact with the beloved during the process of beautification."  The book offers several visuals combs and discusses how the act of combing ones hair was considered seductive.  I am interested in how objects become a significant part of a culture.  Combs "...designed to serve as love tokens."  The above image is by an anonymous English artist, around 1600, entitled Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southhampton and is discussed in the book.

Drawings of Curiosities

"Albertus Seba's "Cabinet of Curiosities" is one of the 18th century's greatest natural history achievements and remains one of the most prized natural history books of all time.
Though it was common for men of his profession to collect natural specimens for research purposes, Amsterdam-based pharmacist Albertus Seba (1665-1736) had a passion that led him far beyond the call of duty. His amazing, unprecedented collection of animals, plants and insects from all around the world gained international fame during his lifetime. In 1731, after decades of collecting, Seba commissioned illustrations of each and every specimen and arranged the publication of a four-volume catalog detailing his entire collection-from strange and exotic plants to snakes, frogs, crocodiles, shellfish, corals, insects, butterflies and more, as well as fantastic beasts, such as a hydra and a dragon.
Seba's scenic illustrations, often mixing plants and animals in a single plate, were unusual even for the time. Many of the stranger and more peculiar creatures from Seba's collection, some of which are now extinct, were as curious to those in Seba's day as they are to us now."

I have romantic notions about cabinets of curiosities. The thrill of the search and the satisfaction of the find. How each object holds a memory of when it was found. The desire to keep looking, keep collecting. And then the drawings, yet another romance. The time spent in solitude responding to marks on the paper. The layers of graphite and charcoal. The magic of an image appearing on the two-dimensional surface.

I found images and quote on BibliOdyssey. Link here.

Rabbit's Foot

Why and how do objects hold memory for us? I remembered when I was kid that I had a rabbit's foot. With this memory I realized how awful it is to have an animal part for good luck - although the rabbit's foot may not have been real. I remember running my hands over the form and feeling the nails. I think my memory was jogged by scratching Buttercup (the dog) and then playing with her feet. Anyway, my interest in why we make and keep objects has been propelled since I started teaching visual culture. I also noticed that when I go to museum's I am taking a lot of images of objects for good luck, afterlife, etc... Egypt, 19th century sailors decorating carved whale bones for their loved one to insert in their corset.

Victorian silver mounted rabbit's foot charm.  

The sense of touch, sense of space. The small objects I make are all about the sense of touch. I am interested in how we have always made objects to label us and remind us. Touching these objects equally important as seeing them. Diane Ackerman's book, A Natural History of the Senses is discusses all the senses. Also, Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial is important here - she gave us a monument to touch. I am more interested in the smaller, intimate objects of a culture - the objects we stow away, we hide, we keep near us, we wear on our body. The objects we assign meaning to.