Installations
“Art defamiliarizes the familiar, and thereby makes it new. Artists know this, but not only artists. We all sense that in looking at the world outside our own personal interests and habits we can feel something of the divine, of the whole.”
― Norman Fischer
Sin Eater
Sin Eater Interactive Installation: 10' x18 ' sculpture, paper mache figure with plaster casted hands, chair, light box constructed from wood and plexiglass (or small table)with basket of pasta and signage.
The Sin Eater Cafe is a mixed media interactive installation that invites the viewer to rid themselves of their and others “sins” by writing them on pasta and feeding them to this mythological iconic figure: Nonna SinEater, half dolphin and half Italian grandmother. This work explores the shadow aspects of the unconscious mind, our weaknesses and shortcomings. It provokes the viewer's thoughts and emotions to the word "sin" in a playful manner. Sin eater is another word for a shaman, a wounded healer and someone who transmutes negative energy. This work stems from my work as an expressive arts psychotherapist, my interest in shamanism and my Italian cultural roots.
Instructions:
1- Write sin on pasta.
2- Put it in mouth.
Tabula Rasa Confessional
My intention is to create a space that invites something to come forward and then wiping the slate clean. It plays with my childhood Catholic experience of confessionals, my current practice of Zen Buddhist meditation and expressive arts body mind therapy.
I like to blur the boundaries between artist and viewer as well as create an experience for the viewer that invites them to consider their inner life. To enter the Japanese parachute confessional you must get on your hands and knees and crawl in. This light filled tent invites the participant to draw with chalk on the Buddha blackboard and erase it with a sea sponge. This religionless confessional can accommodate two people at a time. Expressing and confessing in this shame free environment aims to generate a feeling of freedom and perhaps even a metamorphosis.
Dream Repository Installation
This dream tent is made from a silk Japanese parachute. Participants enter from a small doorway and sit on the floor surrounded by various symbols: a poem, ambient music, a doll’s bed of marigold flowers, key, cage, lion, human hair wig to create a dream like atmosphere. Art materials are provided to write, draw or tell a dream with the tin can telephones.
Dreams are meant to be shared, investigated, embellished. They hold personal and collective meanings. Many cultures collectively honor and share their dreams. We all are dreamers. Sharing dreams and our dream creations can help dissolve the barriers that keep us separate from ourselves and one another. Dreams come to help us, to show us where we are, to guide, inspire, and grow us.
