Category: Arts

ASWM’s mission extends to the influence of scholarship in Women and Mythology on the arts. These posts highlight some of our activities and members.

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Illustrations Needed!

How many times have you read a scholarly work that describes a design or artifact and said, “But what does it look like?” As publishers cut costs, illustrations are disappearing from books.  As scholars we’re left with half an idea, half an understanding. We can’t learn what we can’t see.

In other cases old photos are reproduced from previous editions, degraded to the point that they are almost meaningless.  Can you find anything useful in this repeatedly over-printed picture of the Matres at Bath?  Yet it appears in a book on Scottish folklore.

Matres_badPic

Miriam Robbins Dexter is co-author of the award-winning book Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia. This volume bucks the trend of modern publishing; it relies heavily on illustrations to advance its thesis. Miriam describes the issue this way:

Images greatly enhance scholarly books and articles, but it is essential that they be high quality.  Most good publishers will not accept fuzzy or low-pixel images.  It is possible to purchase excellent images from museums but those are quite expensive.  Crisp line drawings are not as expensive as museum copies, and they reproduce much better than poor quality photographs. Line drawings are an excellent means of rendering publishable images.

At ASWM, we want to be able to include quality images in our proceeding anthology. We are issuing this special call for donations to enable us to include artists’ original line drawings for the anthology. We will work directly with illustrators, rather than placing the burden on individual authors to find and hire artists.

At the same time we are working on the anthology, we can develop a resource that will have a long-term impact on scholarship. Among ASWM’s members are many visual artists; we plan to set up directory that would link them with authors in need of illustrations. Miriam says, “I applaud the idea of pairing authors with artists who can render excellent line drawings: it is an idea whose time has come.”

ASWM is in an ideal position to provide a service and enhance publication of scholarship. If you would like to help us with this project, please go to our Donations page. And watch our site and newsletter for updates on this important project.

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Magic of Ice Age Cave Comes to Chicago

Lasc.horse-aurochs

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. 

The exhibit runs from March 20-September 8, 2013.

lascaux.fieldmuseum.org

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ASWM Launches Film Series

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.

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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.

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””

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Altared Spaces Art Exhibit

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. 

Altar by Barb Lutz
Altar by Barb Lutz