Hekete
2014
RioBravoFineArt Gallery, Truth or Consequences New Mexico
Curated by Susan A Christie
Curated by Susan A Christie
Click on Images to Enlarge
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hekate, a domestic goddess often associated with ghosts and witchcraft, protected the households and cities of ancient Greece by guarding entrances, portals, thresholds and the “in between,” often dangerous liminal spaces where inner and outer worlds touch and where transformation occurs. Cult names reflect this role: Apotropaia (that turns away/protects); Enodia (on the way or in the road); Propulaia/Propylaia (before the gate); Triodia/Trioditis (who frequents crossroads); Klêidouchos (holding the keys). This triplicate goddess with torches, keys, and many other items, reappeared as Trivia (the 3 ways) in Roman times. Modern Wiccans associate the triple goddess with the concept of maiden-mother-crone.
Sacred hounds attend her. Her dogs were originally associated with birth and later with restless inhabitants of the underworld. Dogs often howl before she appears. Sometimes there are serpents and a horse, and other animals. She receives garlic and other food offerings at 3 way crossroads at night. She uses herbs and plants that her dogs can dig to perform magical acts.
My contemporary shrine to this complex and enigmatic goddess is part of my on-going series of “Dream” installations, journeys into unconscious narratives, reworkings of memories and myths. At first I made them just to make photographs within the installations, and then they became the art itself, something to display and experience. Other installations have been called Dream Mother, Dream Umbrella, Dream River, Dream Cloak, Dream Spiral and Dream of Emptiness.
Working with the yarn and thread and cloth to “find” Hekate, I imagined myself at all ages in half-remembered rooms with my mother and grandmothers. We talked and talked while we knit sweaters and darned socks, while we patched and crocheted, while we made hooked rugs from old wool suits and quilts from old cotton dresses. Occasionally elegant designs resulted, but more often we were making repairs and “making do,” just transforming the scraps of yesterday into something new and useful.
For me Hekate is many things. It is a place - like a temple or the domestic sphere or a cluttered room in the artist’s mind or a liminal ritual space. It is a person - like Hekate herself or a chorus of women, or myself alone.
Our Bodies, Ourselves. A woman’s body is her most significant domestic space and one worthy of protection from intruders. From my contemporary feminist perspective I have made an updated Hekate goddess who is the guardian of each woman’s body which is her personal domicile, an intimate domain often under siege or severe scrutiny.
Sacred hounds attend her. Her dogs were originally associated with birth and later with restless inhabitants of the underworld. Dogs often howl before she appears. Sometimes there are serpents and a horse, and other animals. She receives garlic and other food offerings at 3 way crossroads at night. She uses herbs and plants that her dogs can dig to perform magical acts.
My contemporary shrine to this complex and enigmatic goddess is part of my on-going series of “Dream” installations, journeys into unconscious narratives, reworkings of memories and myths. At first I made them just to make photographs within the installations, and then they became the art itself, something to display and experience. Other installations have been called Dream Mother, Dream Umbrella, Dream River, Dream Cloak, Dream Spiral and Dream of Emptiness.
Working with the yarn and thread and cloth to “find” Hekate, I imagined myself at all ages in half-remembered rooms with my mother and grandmothers. We talked and talked while we knit sweaters and darned socks, while we patched and crocheted, while we made hooked rugs from old wool suits and quilts from old cotton dresses. Occasionally elegant designs resulted, but more often we were making repairs and “making do,” just transforming the scraps of yesterday into something new and useful.
For me Hekate is many things. It is a place - like a temple or the domestic sphere or a cluttered room in the artist’s mind or a liminal ritual space. It is a person - like Hekate herself or a chorus of women, or myself alone.
Our Bodies, Ourselves. A woman’s body is her most significant domestic space and one worthy of protection from intruders. From my contemporary feminist perspective I have made an updated Hekate goddess who is the guardian of each woman’s body which is her personal domicile, an intimate domain often under siege or severe scrutiny.