There are ways in which modern technology can serve the most ancient landscapes of myth and art. A prime example is a special exhibit currently showing at the Field Museum in Chicago: Scenes from the Stone Age: The Cave Paintings of Lascaux. Interior rooms of the magnificent Lascaux cave are reproduced to provide a simulated experience of the art of our ancient ancestors. The Field web site invites us to
Walk through exact cave replicas by flickering light, marveling at full-size copies of the paintings—including some never before seen by the public—and see them through the eyes of ancient artists. Deconstruct the paintings’ many layers of complexities, meet a lifelike Stone Age family, and discover why the true meaning and purpose of the caves remain a mystery even today.
ASWM has a keen interest in quality films on scholarly subjects related to women and mythology. Such films are excellent educational and community resources. With this in mind we have launched a Film Series for conferences/symposia. We will consider documentary, narrative, and creative films for inclusion in the series. The following guidelines are in place for selection of films.
ASWM Film Guidelines
1. The film should be a scholarly work from a feminist/womanist perspective.
2. The focus of the film should include some form of women’s experience. (This may also include addressing the exclusion of women.)
3. The film topic should include a component of myth, sacredness and/or practice inspired by earth spirituality.
4. The film may address historical, contemporary or future-oriented topics anywhere on the globe, in cyberspace, and beyond.
5. The film may be artistic or realistic in approach.
6. ASWM wishes to encourage respectful study and representation of diverse cultures and experience. To that end, films should include the perspective of those being filmed to every extent possible. Collaborative projects are welcomed.
Dates and deadlines for each event will be announced on this site. Films may be submitted for consideration by contacting aswmsubmissions@gmail.com for the submission form. Please put “Film Proposal” in the subject line followed by the film title.
Creating Buddhas, The Making and Meaning of Fabric Thangkas
a film by Isadora Gabrielle Leidenfrost
Creating Buddhas is a documentary film by Isadora Gabrielle Leidenfrost featuring an artist who makes Buddhas out of silk, Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo. Trained in Dharamsala, India for nine years, Leslie is one of the few female fabric thangka makers in the world.
At work on the Green Tara Thangka
Thangka, which means a rolled up image made of silk cloth, helped spread Buddhism throughout Asia. Viewing a thangka sacred image is a Buddhist spiritual practice which helps sentient beings move in the direction of enlightenment.
In the Tibetan cultural tradition, fabric thangka making is the highest form of art. Thangkas are made of precious materials; pure silk, gold threads, ornaments. There is a geometrical, artistic and spiritual canon to follow. It is a challenge to learn and practice the art form.
The beautiful film follows the process of making a Green Tara thangka from its beginnings to completion over six months later. The process is both a spiritual one and an artistic one–both the making of thangkas and the making of movies.
ASWM member Barb Lutz, whose work is featured on the page Myth and Living Rituals,had first gallery showing of her unique earthen altars (“shamanic creations of sacred space”) in Madison, WI, in May.
These are words and images from Barb Lutz’s art show, “Altared Spaces,” which ran concurrent with the recent ASWM Symposium in Madison, where Barb also presented, and RCG-I’s annual “Gathering of Priestesses and Goddess Women.”
One entered the exhibit experience, which was dedicated to the Earth (“we will not forsake you!”) through a “Hall of Ancestors.” These words welcomed visitors:
You are entering sacred space.. . . You are entering the culture of a very special Tribe of Wimmin who honor and love the Goddess and who Follow the Wheel of the Year (the Seasons of Nature), the Wheel of Life, as our Life.
“Our religion is the Wheel. Our language, Ritual. Our tribe, Dianic….Goddess…. Amazon!”*
Each elaborate display was visual and silent. Barb chose not to add written explanations to the altars, instead inviting people to “simply and deeply experience them as an opportunity for an intimate conversation between each of us and Her. “
Barb had this to say: My work as an altarist, ritualist, and creator of sacred space is done within the culture of my People, Goddess wimmin, in our Mystery School in North Carolina, the WOTY program, rituals, and other venues. These altars are about my relationship to Her, from their conception to manifestation to the completion, when the dirt and sand and other natural items are composted in our garden or made use of in other altars and sacred spaces.
My inspiration is Nature, the temples and science and art of ancient Goddess cultures, my foremother’s such as archeologist Marija Gimbutas, other artists and researchers, my Priestess, and the wimmin I Circle with, who are also Nature.
*from unpublished manuscript by Kim Duckett, soon to be serialized on RCG-I’s Seasonal Salon.
“Things We Don’t Talk About” is a groundbreaking feature-length documentary film that is currently being produced by filmmaker (and ASWM member) Isadora Gabrielle Leidenfrost, as part of her dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The film weaves together healing narratives from the Red Tent — a red textile space where women gather to share deep and powerful stories about their lives. The Rent Tent movement is changing the way that women interact, support each other, and think about their bodies. “Things We Don’t Talk About” seeks to humanize the stories in the red tent—to put a face on the space.
What is the Red Tent?
The Red Tent is a phenomenon and a movement that is unique to women. Inspired by the bestselling novel of the Old Testament, The Red Tent (1997) by Anita Diamant, women have spontaneously created a contemporary tradition of red fabric “tent” spaces that honor and promote women’s healing.
Neither the Red Tent movement nor “Things We Don’t Talk About” is affiliated in any way with Anita Diamant’s excellent novel of the same name. Nonetheless, Diamant’s description of the traditional menstrual hut used by women in the book inspired, in part, the idea of the Red Tent as a special space and a healing practice.
Isadora describes the Red Tent this way:
With its ability to address social problems, reflect values, knowledge, and the basic feelings of women, the Red Tent fulfils a constellation of gendered societal needs: To create a place that honors and celebrates women; enable open conversations about the things that women don’t want to talk about in other venues; promote positive ideals for womanhood; educate women about their bodies; educate women about natural menstrual remedies; create an open dialogue about sex; share birthing information; discuss issues of body image and self-acceptance; provide a place where women’s voices can be heard; to provide a spiritual place for women where they can laugh, cry, sing, dance, give each other back or foot rubs, play with face and body painting, give or receive massage and other types of body work, tell stories, eat soup, drink tea, sleep, meditate, journal, share poetry, create artwork, knit … just to name a few!
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