Arts – Page 11

May 11, 2011January 9, 2024

Review: “Creating Buddhas”

by Lydia Ruyle

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.

assembling Tara — 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.

Continue reading “Review: “Creating Buddhas””

April 19, 2011January 9, 2024

Altared Spaces Art Exhibit

antlered earthball altar_72 — Altared space–Barb Lutz

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.

January 28, 2011January 9, 2024

“Things We Don’t Talk About”: Women’s Wisdom from the Red Tent

“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!

‘Things We Don’t Talk About” will be released in May 2012. For more information visit http://www.redtentmovie.com and http://www.facebook.com/redtentfilm

June 18, 2010January 9, 2024

Review: “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican”

by Patricia Monaghan, Ph.D.

One of the most thrilling moments of the first national ASWM conference in April, 2010, was the world premiere of the documentary “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican” by California filmmaker Jules Hart.

Wom.priests2 — Women priests featured in film

Four years in the making, this surprising and moving film traces recent developments within the Roman Catholic Church. Catholicism holds that priests must be ordained “in apostolic succession,” meaning that each priest is ordained by a bishop whose heritage can be traced all the way back to the original apostles of Jesus Christ—a two thousand year link to the founding fathers of the church. Continue reading “Review: “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican””

May 14, 2010January 9, 2024

Review: A Modern Mythmaker in Wyoming

A Woman to Match A Mountain: Neal Forsling and Crimson Dawn.

Film review by Sid Reger, Ed. D.

Are myths and legends only available from ancient sources? This charming biographical film proves that it’s possible for a modern woman to single-handedly build a myth tradition that continues to thrive in Wyoming 80 years after its creation. Neal Forsling was herself the stuff of legend, a young woman who divorced in the 1920s and moved with her two girls to homestead on a mountaintop in the rugged land near Casper. There she not only defied convention as a writer and artist, but in 1930, at her Summer Solstice party, she started a living myth tradition: the Witches of Crimson Dawn.

Forsling.Witches — Witches and lanterns, N. Forsling

Through telling and enacting stories for the children of the mountain, Neal and her friends created an ongoing celebration of fairies, witches, and other mythic characters. She maintained that the Crimson Witch approached her when she moved to the land, and told her to protect the beautiful mountain and pass its stories on to willing visitors. As the Bohemian group of artists in Casper grew, so did the energy for creating the stories of the witches, (benevolent spirits) elves, and woodcutters. Continue reading “Review: A Modern Mythmaker in Wyoming”