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Stillpoint: A Reflective Artful Inquiry An art installation and three performance rituals are the outcome of an artist residency at the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts on Toronto Island, Ontario, during the month of July 2007. The time spent in this creative hiatus became the stillpoint or centerpoint of the labyrinthal walk of my dissertation journey. I was in need of a sacred, arts space to empty and reflect upon my research of the past three years at The University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Education. I entered Women’s Time and worked between two full moons cycles which book-ended my residency. The writing of the dissertation was fed by this reflective artful inquiry. Stillpoint is the visual distilling of the larger collaborative a/r/tographic dissertation research involving thirteen women and myself, who organize the Women’s Spirituality Celebration (WSC), an annual multi-faith conference in Vancouver (now in its 17th year) Within this project we explored our individual and collective experiences and understandings of spirituality and religions, which resulted in a co-created art installation and performance ritual entitled Womb Entering, that took place in April 2007 at the AMS Gallery (UBC). Within the womb of my island residency on Lake Ontario I found myself walking along the lakeshore each morning, drawn to collecting flat round stones and feathers, and immersing my feet in the water. This meditative walking ritual seeped into my studio (a converted elementary school classroom), as I began creating thread labyrinths on the studio floor. The stones, feathers, thread and water eventually wove themselves together-- creating an installation of wall hangings, along with Waterwalk, a video projection onto a stone spiral labyrinth sewn onto fabric, and a floor labyrinth entitled Water Labyrinth in a design from Southern India called Chakra-vyuha which is made of stone, and two videos documenting Voicing the Stones and Contra Pedagogical Time/Walk on Sand performance rituals. A further meditative practice of creating spontaneous mandalas each day documented and nourished the inquiry. Contra Pedagogical Time/Walk on Sand took place on the last day of the residency. In this spontaneous performance ritual my desire was to return the labyrinth of stones to the lake. Wende Bartley witnessed and documented this final walk that brought my womb-like hiatus to a close. The Stillpoint art installation and Voicing the Stones performance ritual were part of a studio showing at Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts on July 30th 2007 on the eve of the full moon. The Stillpoint Altar triptyche was part of the 2008 WSC at the Center for Peace in Vancouver B.C. The Water Labyrinth has been gifted to the WSC for future conferences. Voicing the Stones was a co-created performance ritual with sound artist/composer Wende Bartley. Working together with trance, Wende’s music, the Water Labyrinth, and our common interest in ancient and contemporary understandings of the Divine Feminine, we invoked and danced with the energy of stones. Wende’s accompanying musical composition was created from vocal and soundscape recordings made in Greece on the islands of Crete and Patmos Acropolis Hill on the island of Patmos. The cicadas and closing voices are from the Phaistos Temple site of Crete. Wende’s music also accompanied the Stillpoint Performance Ritual performed by myself on the opening eve of the AMS Gallery exhibition. A life of learning and following spirit to a place of wholeness requires many long walks. Walking is a metaphor/pedagogy for following the sacred path(s) in this installation. A sanctuary for foot washing is contained within the gallery space as a sacred ritual that crosses many religious traditions. I offer the ritual of foot washing as an act of gratitude for those that choose to stop, rest, and receive during the timeof this installation. Naked
feet keep walking, Barbara Bickel,
Womb Entering The art installation, Womb Entering, is the fruit of collaborative women’s work. As part of my arts-based dissertation inquiry, thirteen women accepted the invitation to explore their understandings of spirituality and religion as leaders of an annual multi-faith conference for women. Planning the Women’s Spirituality Celebration (WSC) has been part of my yearly cycle of volunteer work since 1999. Although, new women join and others leave the WSC group every year, some of the thirteen women in this inquiry have been part of the event since its inception in 1992. The current planning group added this research project to their already rich and complex lives. I’m deeply grateful for the gift of their spirits and energy in this co-creative project. My desire is that this art installation publicly validate women’s sacred leadership work, which is so often invisible and taken for granted in our society. Our first WSC planning meeting of the year took place last June at the Vancouver School of Theology (VST). Here we gathered at the outdoor labyrinth and ritually walked the journey together. The co-creative inquiry for this project began last November on a weekend retreat in one of our homes. A stone labyrinth filled the backyard of this woman’s home. Over the weekend, within the circle of ritual, we shared stories, entered trance, meditated, created individual art pieces, slept, ate, laughed, cried, journaled, danced, and reflected on our lives as women spiritual leaders on particular historically-informed spiritual journeys. The labyrinth, in this installation, graces the gallery floor and connects each of our journeys to our diverse spiritual and religious ancestral histories. The gallery opening performance ritual took place on the labyrinth, with a co-created sculpture at its center, Her Divine Countenance. This resting mask waits to be activated by each persons reflection when they enter the center. Woman Spirit Shield, is a co-created guardian, which when drummed, awakens the call to gather. Within the gallery, meditation sanctuaries offer a place for witnessing the co-creative process through a DVD documentary and a hand-bound book containing a collection of poems and trances that emerged within the inquiry. The performance ritual that took place at the WSC opening ritual in March 2007 entitled Dancing the Altars, as well as the pilot project performance ritual entitled Re/Turning to Her, which took place on the VST labyrinth in July 2006, are projected into the gallery space. Their audio soundtracks echo back and forth between each other. The individually created art pieces installed on the walls allow a glimpse into each woman’s expression of her spiritual self. These art pieces, similar to the spiritual journey, are not necessarily “finished” pieces of art, they express moments and places in time. The practice of a/r/tography calls for an interwoven relationship between art/research/teaching through art making and writing. The women of this project entered a co-a/r/tographic process with me. I have had the dual role of facilitator and co-participant. As one of the women pointed out, I have had the task of holding together, yet keeping untangled, the multiple golden threads of this project. The mindfulness required for this role has been overwhelming at times, yet rendered possible by the level of respect, compassion, care and commitment on the part of the women in their support of me and this work. The ability of the women to communicate thoughtfully, combined with a willingness to be vulnerable, open and honest has allowed this project to be simultaneously a fragile and powerful undertaking. In a world made up of diverse cultures, religious histories and practices, the public revealing of this collaborative art and inquiry process has an educational purpose of bringing awareness to the importance of multi-faith understanding, learning and practices. We do this through revealing ourselves, our spiritual paths and religions personally, through art. Art offers an arational language that can perhaps assist communication between the rational and irrational expressions so prevalent in our religiously diverse and warring world. We invite you to enter into this womb space as a transformative learning site, with an open heart and willingness to see yourself reflected, in whole or in part, within the diversity of spiritual and religious paths revealed here. Barbara Bickel Inarticulate GroundA mixed media installationBarbara Bickel, Jennifer Peterson & R. Michael Fisher April 17-22, 2006 The inarticulate wants sanctuary more than it wants words, words arrive last, not first. This a/r/tographic exhibition is a doubling, tripling, an unintentional echoing of voice, text, and image. Fisher’s art maintains the chord base tone in the installation through a complexifying of relations, of tone and chord changes, using them as fundamental binary of circle and square (method and thinking). Bickel’s art holds the percussive theme and octaval setting (body as battleground for re-imagining, battle with words and paper), dealing with the positionality of the artist within the academy as an active intervention (arational inquiry, body). Peterson’s art plays off these two fundamental modalities, and is an example of the kind of melodies you can create... lament, durge, lyrics, arias (effects of representation), as an artist/researcher/educator engaged in sacred space/experience as pedagogy. Barbara Bickel, PhD Candidate
As an artist in the midst of a Ph.D. program in Education, I am appreciative of the sanctuary space of the gallery. Creating and transforming spaces into locations of ritual experience is my pedagogy. The video installation includes a 13 minute documented performance ritual that I performed in a classroom setting, entitled Living Inquiry, alongside a 4 minute video projected onto the ground, entitled “The other woman that she will be.” The video is echoed in the still images of the triptychs done with Fisher and Peterson. The premise of my art practice has been that humans have evolved into a place of being in exile from their own bodies, and in that, exiled from a body-based knowledge. I have long struggled for an articulate voice sourced from body-based knowledge as a female and an artist in this world. I have been dedicated to visually reading, writing, and ultimately embodying a female sentence. The intention behind the art I create has been to locate female narratives that read body symbols and illuminate the body as a sacred source of text and knowing. As well, I have been interested in the body as a battleground, and a site for re-imagining what it means to be a woman. My deepening challenge has been to confront the traditional sentence structure that has held the feminine and female body in exile from itself, rendering her silent. I recently wrote a book chapter, entitled Embodying Exile: Performing the “Curricular” Body for the book, entitled Curriculum and the Cultural Body edited by Stephanie Springgay and Debra Freedman, which is based on this documented performance ritual and currently in press. A draft copy of the chapter is available to read in the gallery. April 17, 2006 Jennifer Peterson PhD CandidateIt is an honor to be invited to participate with R. Michael Fisher and Barbara Bickel in co-constructing this installation. For some time now we have been conversing about several different things that have come together in this work, which assembles around many shared interests. This includes my thesis work on inarticulate spaces. I am interested in what Julia Kristeva terms “a semiotic that does not necessarily coincide with linguistic communication.” The moments and movements of a non language, which locate in the human space of being and form are dense important locations. These not-always-explicable places which often “exist without repeated legitimation” may nevertheless form spots essential to individual and collective human dignity, vitality and generativity. Against the spaces it is easy to commit a catachresis, “an improper use of words.” Traces of an important positionality around the inarticulate linger in Barbara Bickel and Michael Fisher’s work. They construct their images around a potent space by playing with the bounding dynamics of the grounding square and the centralizing moment of the circle. This conversation is simple—yet creates its time-filled moments. To me their work features a kind of grounding relation, as practice. I experience a loss of gravity and ground as I navigate the digital, the medium through which I experience a kind of brimming presence/absence. Thus I play with marking my work with the small green glass stones in an effort to give them some of this grounding and gravity. I add them to my images, as my means of marking my positioning, my body in reference to them. I attempt a tracking with the stones of a boundary between me, two dimensional virtuality and three dimensional actual/virtual space—and the stones also reference back to the gatherings of light and density in Michael’s and Barbara’s work. As I bend to place these stones—as a bit of weighted space—in/on my images, I allow this weight to rest in my warm palm. These stones speak to me of intention, of a practice—as does Michael’s and Barbara’s work. They are practicing artists, educators and researchers. I am an educator/researcher/thinker who has recently stumbling into art and performing. I research the digital which has a tremendously reflective and refractive nature. In making art and performing inquiry into the relations between making, thinking (and gravity)—I have come to practice a pose/counter pose positioning regards the digital. My images are conversations between digits (actual—as in fingers, feet and body) and digits (virtual). I make images that I then interpret with my digital camera/scanner/software—printing these out, then adding a new layer of making onto these images and so forth. My research has involved attempting to track what happens in these conversations between body, positioned in certain relations of meaning to its makings. I have been surprised to discover that this means of working has been tremendously vitalizing. The green glass stone straddles an important boundary between virtuality and actuality—as does Barbie—whose doll qualities allow her to bear a kind of agency, kindling up some inarticulate space between technology and person. My art is the result of my research in which I attempt to practice the digital with a kind of intentionality, a weighted-ness that is a counter pose to the spinning nature of relations to the screen. April 17, 2006 R. Michael Fisher , Ph.D.I have found at least three readings have emerged in this art series, each difficult to articulate, thus the In-Art-Iculate Ground worked for me as a collaborative title for this exhibition. I will talk about two of the readings in the Artist Talks scheduled during this exhibition. Here I will focus on the third one, which could be categorized as the more “political” of the three. This third reading begins with the materials I’ve used to do art work upon—that is the “ground” on which I begin the physical working. They are all materials that have been recycled, of sorts. Other than the canvas pieces, the others are recycled pieces from two other art series I have done and exhibited in the past six years. The canvas pieces (except one) were throw aways from another artist who had decided to not paint anymore. It occurs to me that all these art pieces were done under “difficult” conditions. They are recycled because that is all the material (physically) I have to use, and I keep using them over and over. This is the difficult condition I’ll call “exile”—think of these works of art as being done from a prison, and I am a prisoner, living with “economic hardship.” I have limited supplies to use. The politics of these pieces thus, is part of my “shortage” of resources to produce cultural products in a “culture of fear” or what Henry A. Giroux has called the “carceral state” of a post-9/11 world. At the psychospiritual level, these pieces reflect my time after completing a doctorate degree in Education (2003), and not having found gainful employment or career-climbing-ropes to status and power. I am an artist attempting to work in, with, and between the discipline and field of Education. An artist in Education is perhaps even an oxymoron. The artist challenges what Giroux calls a “pedagogy of fear” in an age of the “spectacle of terrorism” and regressive fundamentalism. For Education to contain freedom, as many believe it should, then the artist ought to have a significant role in facilitating an Education beyond fear. When in prision, as I feel now, there is little chance to get a true hearing of my artist and my politics of fearlessness. I create art pieces to give voice to an expression of resistance to the fear that rules us... I cannot make symbols that people who control the prison will recognize. I have to make the content of the art appear “neutral.” Thus, I use the simple “circle” in the middle of each piece, and a “rectangular” border on each piece as standard “grounds” for each piece. The rest of the images are spontaneous, and the finished piece aesthetic... Yet, who among the prison guardians would see I am making art that is subversive? The pressure of doing art in the prison space is that you have to make it inarticulate, “neutral” to get it by the guardians. And once it gets out of the prison confines it becomes public pedagogy... where the depth, darkness, and suffering can be experienced (perhaps) by those willing to engage the art’s narrative... which I have now given you some clues. April 17, 2006 Elicit Bodies 2006R. Michael Fisher & Barbara Bickel The circle is the spirit in eternal motion . –Trinh T. Minh-ha When this [sacred] art becomes figurative, it will renew the broken harmony between the Earth and its beings. We will see the human, and we will see landscape with vision.... the artwork will expand our consciousness within the imaginal realm. – Kenneth R. Beittel Elicit Bodies is our fifth collaborative art exhibition as life-partners the past 15 years. These include The Rebel’s Journey (1992), De-filed (1997), Fear and Desire (2002), and Inarticulate Ground (2006) with Jennifer Peterson. We are interested in the role of art, creation-making, and creating sacred space for the purpose of encouraging the evolution of consciousness. As a creative couple, we have always integrated our home space with creative workspace. Which means we are interacting, critically and supportively, daily. This on-going interaction, not surprisingly, influences our individual work. Every 4-5 years, working collaboratively on an exhibition has emerged as a vital rhythm in the cycle of reconnection, integration, and renewal. We have found when we are focusing on our individual work for too long, we miss the qualities that creating collaboratively brings forth in our relationship. Elicit Bodies is the outcome of two separate bodies of work. During a studio visit this spring with Karen Green, we were delighted when she saw a connection between Michael’s “Beittel” series (2005) and Barbara’s “She Knows” series (2002). In reflecting on Karen’s intuitive merging of our art series, we have found some overlapping patterns in our creative process and finished pieces. Both series consciously engage arts-based inquiry, where the early stage of the project is rigorously designed around research questions. Michael was studying the writing and art of Dr. K. Beittel and Barbara was inquiring with a group of women into their body-knowing. The imagery in the art of both projects portrays an other-worldly time and space where “bodies” appear, as “the sphere” in Michael’s art, and “the double-figure” in Barbara’s art. Both of us consciously practiced our unique forms of, what Beittel would call, “spontaneous discipline.” We wanted our art to imbue the ethical integrity of working with non-human Creation, what is to us the “perfect body”-- be it a circular form or human form. The consciousness, already “perfected” in its own Being as sphere and figure, prior to being discovered, named, or culturally regulated for political purposes, is the realm of Beauty. The beauty of the “perfect body” seems ever to attract an imaginary that includes but transcends the mundane, ordinary, and less than “perfect” existence we all experience daily. The trance-like methods we used, participated in a rhythm, ritual, and reverence of the sacred, where we sought to transform the “regulated body” into an “imaginary body” to free itself, even if temporarily, from ‘normal’ confines and limitations, if not from suffering itself. Thus, we were able to retranslate an image in the art that reflects the spiritual aspect of our work. elicit – to draw forth in response...to arrive at (the truth, etc.) by questioning or other logical process..., to entice Vancouver, July 14, 2006. Who Will Read This Body? 2004 “The more I delve into fleshing inquiry through the body, I am more deeply aware of the paradoxes resonant within me.” Celeste Snowber, 2002 “ …I am an instrument in the shape of a woman trying to translate pulsations into images for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind.” Adrienne Rich, 1997 This body of work exposes a creative research process that began with a one and a half hour private performance ritual, witnessed by two friends, in which I literally wrote on my body. The documented private performance ritual launched the a/rt/ographical inquiry that makes up part of my masters thesis in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. The performance ritual was an intuitive effort, undertaken in part, to embody and understand the numerous feminists who compellingly summon women to write from their own bodies and write with the body as a form of resistance. My personal intention and desire in this performance ritual was to begin to externalize and embody writing as art. What has become apparent with the unfolding of this exhibition is that it transgresses the boundaries between shame and freedom through the intimate and personal exposure of both the subconscious female mind and the naked female body through the ritual process of a/r/tography. While I have felt at home with the method of a/r/tography, I have also struggled with the challenge of being conscious of and activating the often conflicting roles of artist, researcher and educator this method demands. Through this struggle I have come to recognize art making as research and curriculum making, seen art as curriculum, experienced performance ritual as pedagogy and worked with the body as text. This statement is an attempt to articulate a complex, exciting and emergent research journey.
Who will read this body? is preceded by a thirteen year individual and collaborative (co-creative) art practice of (re)presenting the human body, predominantly the female body, in two dimensional drawings and collages, and in the multi-dimensional medium of performance rituals. The process and experience of art making is extremely important for my art and practice. I have attempted to bring the art making process into the gallery setting through performance rituals co-created by myself and the co-creators/models of the projects. The installation of Who will read this body? which will include an artist talk and public performance ritual, reveals the raw, organic, ritual process of a/rt/ographic research and documentation that has in the past been hidden from the viewer/reader/learner in my art exhibitions and public performance rituals. I have come to learn through a/r/tography that my art has a complex agenda. Not only does it encompass honouring and freeing the human body, but it also serves to challenge and bring to the surface a wounded patriarchal culture of shame and fear. I live within and embody this oppressive and hurting culture on a daily basis and believe that it is rooted in and perpetuated by the philosophical rupture between the mind and body that has existed within western society for more than five hundred years. In this split the mind is valued over the body, associated with the masculine and aligned with societal power, while the body is associated with the feminine and the natural world and is considered something to be controlled and brought into submission. In admitting my own struggle within this philosophical split I come to acknowledge my self as a microscopic part of a whole system. I begin this journey with my self; with my own body and my own writing. I welcome the viewer/reader/learner into the exhibition space as witness to my a/r/tographic testimony; a testimony that has the potential to disrupt body/mind dualisms and as I have found illicit feelings of shame and discomfort. Drawing upon the feminist phrase “the personal is the political” I invite the reader/viewer/learner to witness the personal with or without shame and to move with the personal to the larger, more complex challenge of re-forging the often dissociated and hurting elements of mind, individual and language with those of body, communal and image. To assist the viewer/reader/learner in their transition from the mundane world into the exhibition space I request that they perform a ritual by placing their hands first in earth, then in water before they enter the exhibition space. In this work I ask the viewer/reader/learner to ponder with me the questions that have troubled my own a/r/tographic journey: Am I not making art? Am I not researching? Am I not educating? Am I not writing? Am I not performing? Am I not ritualizing? Am I not learning? Am I not my self? A/r/tography : is a fluid and dynamic method of inquiry that activates and weaves together the complex roles of artist/researcher/teacher (educator) through a critical, theoretical, self-reflexive practice and analysis of art making and writing (adapted from Irwin, de Cossen, Springgay and Wilson). Helene Cixous, Adrienne Rich, Susan Bordo, Arlene B. Dallery, Luce Irigaray, among others. Co-researchers: Monica Brammer, Leah Fisher, Lyn Hazelton, Nane` Jordan & Shanti, Sophia Marten, Cathy Pulkinghorn. These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep. Audre Lorde I believe that a feminist epistemology includes the dark along with the light. We have a wealth of knowledge waiting to be unearthed. Knowledge from the body and the unconscious has often been ignored as a valid site of knowledge in a modern era of scientific epistemology. My art practice for the past twelve years has been focused on the human body, working predominantly with women in a collaborative process. The underlying base that has flowed through all the work has been the honouring of the body as a sacred vessel and container of wisdom. This honouring contradicts the shaming of women's bodies and the invalidating of women's wisdom that has gone on for hundreds of years in our society. Internalized judgements keep women divided from themselves and others. The feminist art that has evolved in my own practice attempts to reunite this divide, it encourages the reconnection and reintegration of woman's knowing. My decision to study Arts-based Inquiry at UBC is a development in my art to integrate the intellect of the mind, through the study of theory and the written word, with the knowledge of the body. I use the words trance, journey and visualization interchangeably. They all speak about going inside and accessing awareness from an altered place; a location that is removed from the mundane world. It is a space for dreaming while awake. I have experienced this state as a rich source for my creative exploration into the wisdom/knowing of the body. Trance work combined with art-making has allowed me to access a depth of knowledge that is often hidden and ignored. Through working with trance the inner "double", who acts as an ally, guide and/or teacher, emerged as a vehicle for communicating with the Self. The uncovered inner knowledge from the trance has been transformed into art and performance ritual. In the creation of She Knows, I collaborated with six women who entered the trance process to access inner knowledge. I facilitated, witnessed and participated in these journeys. I listened to the taped trance to create the three small collages, which are a visual narrative of each woman's journey. I made the large drawings last with the intention of integrating each woman with her "double". A sound installation, using the women's voices recorded in trance, along with a performance ritual that was collaboratively created through a group trance with all of the women, accompanies the visual art. The transformation of hidden knowledge, drawn from the female body into visual language, voice and understanding is the essence of this collaborative exploration. September 11th, The ultimate symbol of western patriarchy has been blown up. We in North America are now awake. The false shell of security, Every morning in September I read the headlines of the newspaper, walk and rage and cry. Where are the women' s voices? Why are the "old boys" still in power? Why are women still silent and without power in the larger political world? How are we contributing to these acts of violence in our silence? October 1st, I am angry, at myself, at other women, my despair is constantly present. I am so angry I cannot speak to people. I am glad to be angry. I go to my studio. I look for images that will reflect my state. I open an envelope with photos taken for a past project where I explored the woman warrior. These images match my mood. I begin to collage the photo images onto cut up pieces of an old drawing of myself. My cut up body is the ground of this work. Text enters the collage "BUT", "RITE", I want more words to emerge but they elude me. The body speaks for me, the forceful gestures, the struggle, the exposed vulnerability. October 2nd, I am encouraged when I hear a woman's voice and see her face on the front page of the newspapers. My rage builds as I hear the frightened responses to the truth she speaks. The art I am creating becomes very clear to me. It is a "war" series. October 7th, I go to my studio, work and weep. I realize that the ground of the art pieces I am making look very much like the vague television screen images of Afghanistan being bombed. The woman warrior is already there expressing her rage and pain at the acts of destructive insanity. The unreality of the events are made graspable by her embodied response. The presence of her body in the ground of human destruction offers my conflicting experiences of reality a "real" place to speak from. October 18th, I writeAwait now A woman The power to cut The power to deny pleasure The power to rage The power to respond October 21st , My art shifts. I want new images. I cut up another old drawing of myself. The ground is red. Bandages, gauze wrapping, grief. How do women in the Middle East feel? I can never fully know. But I have the same body, I can open to that knowing. The body speaks to me of grief that is fully alive and determined. Being undone Her body Her bondage Mary's art is with me in the studio while I am working. Her raw marks occupy the corners of my eyes at all times. She is not concerned with the "right " words coming out in these marks. She implicitly trusts the ancestral quality of these female notations. They came before and go after us. They have become a solid ally to my struggling art. In the collaborative installation Women "Enduring Freedom" our diverse bodies of work come together in an intimate relationship. Overlapping the surfaces of our art as well as our voices risks a powerful fusion of female knowing. * The first exhibition in collaboration with Mary Blaze, opened in Vancouver at the Ishtar Gallery on November 11th, 2001. I am a woman of N. European descent, whose personal history has been heavily influenced by the W. Christian traditions. While traveling throughout Europe and studying art history as a young woman, I was inspired by the art traditions found often in Christian cathedrals and amazed at the energy and resources devoted to making the Christian narratives publicly visible and thus, imbuing them with cultural power. As a female artist I desire that same kind of cultural power to be focused on creating and making publicly visible art that is devoted to remembering and celebrating the ancient and newly emerging female myths. Pre-Christian European cultural traditions are well-known to have nurtured the presence of female visionaries, prophetesses and wise women known as Volvas, who lived and practiced their art in northern Europe. Their skills, respected and valued, were integral to the spiritual life of the community. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries also produced many female Christian mystics (e.g., Hildegarde von Bingen, Mechtild of Magdeburg). These women were revered for their visions and teachings within their communities and beyond. After this period the status of women as spiritual leaders declined drastically. The Inquisition, which lasted from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, managed to erase virtually all of women's spiritual, visionary and leadership roles in their communities, leaving a hidden legacy of terror that continues to confront women today as they reclaim and practice spiritual arts and leadership. Like the historic female visionaries of my ancestors, I have utilized my art to access contemporary female visions. The visual art expresses the altered world of a trance/dream state and reflects a female vision within non-confining time and space. To fully lay claim to the role of visionary, illuminator, my voice and words were required. Writing became a spontaneous, grounding response to the challenges of creating visual art that was opening unfamiliar realms where I often felt inadequate and overwhelmed. The performance piece allowed me to create a vision that I could fully embody and share as a whole with others in the moment. It is my desire that the art and writing of Illuminatus will re-introduce woman's place as visionary in our society and re-awaken the voices and hands of women to share their visions, wisdom and spirits with the world. Battle Cries: In Search of the Warrior Woman is a first time collaboration for Barbara Bickel and Pauline Le Bel, in which they draw on their rich and diverse artistic lives to sift through the ashes of female warrior heritage, and create new images of female strength. Bickel praised for her "sorceress like ability to see beyond the obvious, and ...claim the spiritual and personal mosaic hidden within the shadows of beauty and light" has exhibited her art in Western Canada for the past nine years. Her last provocative exhibition and performance in Calgary, The Spirituality of Eroticism was held at The New Gallery. Since then she has been living and creating art in Vancouver. Le Bel, acclaimed as "a musical instrument linked to a soul"(Victoria Times) for her passionate portrayal of Edith Piaf in theatres across Canada is also an award winning novelist and screenwriter (The Song Spinner). A long time resident of Edmonton she now makes her home on Bowen Island B.C, where she is producing her first CD of the songs she wrote for Battle Cries, as well as a limited edition chapbook of the poems. Working together Bickel and Le Bel confront personal and societal limitations on woman's warrior energy in their continuing struggle to move beyond cartoon stereotypes and notions of warriorship based on a male model. Stretching the boundaries of their artistic realms they embody the warrior energy, penetrating its roots in biology, culture and art, to reclaim and redefine this dishonoured aspect of human experience. The Warrior Woman enters through the doorway of Bickel's mixed media art pieces and her voice resonates through songs and stories composed and improvised by Le Bel. In the performance Le Bel will be joined by Bickel to create a seamless tapestry of images, words, music and movement, sounding a clarion call for the remembering of woman's power and her ability to take action and initiate change in the world. This project was not about forward movement, thrusting ahead (how we might typically perceive the warrior's energy), it was a going back, looking inward, a journey of descent. Struggle was the constant element. This body of work is about the journey towards understanding and reclaiming woman as self-empowered warrior. I believe that the female body holds great wisdom, as well as storing the memory of our oppression. These art pieces were created by holding the intent within the body to be warrior-like and to embody a strong, empowered, forceful, directed stance or movement. The experience of struggle, pain and surrender was captured in the images, as well as the building of energy, resistance and the peace of knowing. The large drawings required a lot of energy, in that I had to continually overcome internalized mistrust of being able to create images of the woman warrior. The collage pieces with their intuitive layering of images and forms allowed me to enter the sometimes confusing and obscured realms that this project evoked. Creating the "You can't kill the Spirit" series was an act of building energy and determination I required to continue the journey and embark on the descent series "Naked and bowed low she entered the chamber". In retrospect, I recognize the seven chambers represented in my pieces as similar to the ancient Sumerian myth, the Descent of Inanna. Inanna is the Queen of Heaven and Earth. who descends into the underworld where she is stripped of her power and killed by her under-world sister, Ereshkigal. Inanna's ally/companion Ninshubur helps her to return from the underworld and at her return she becomes Queen of Heaven and Earth. Her journey is about coming to know and integrate the realms of the earth as well as the heavens, the dark and the light. After the relief of completing this series I knew that art pieces were required that would integrate the split in myself that this journey had made visible. The return collage piece that emerged after my descent "From the Great above she opened her ear to the Great Below", reminded me that, in spite of feeling torn apart, an integration of opposites that is beautiful could occur. Most women are not taught or encouraged to be fully in their power. They have been to hurt by destructive power over them that they are mistrustful of the essential inherent power within themselves and each other. It is my desire that the art of Ancient Battlegrounds be an offering to the re-imagining of a fully empowered woman warrior in our world today. I would like to add a special acknowledgment to singer/writer Pauline Le Bel for her contribution to the creation of this project. Collaborator: Movement Artist - Kathryn McGregor "The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling." -Audre Lorde Art and collaborative creation, which is the participation and interaction of the subject/model, the artist and art medium, has been the driving force behind my evolution as an artist and woman. Since 1995 I have been exploring the female image, relationship with women, their wisdom and their strength through my art. My teachers are and continue to be the women I co-create with. Collectively they have brought together the fragmented feminine knowledge that I as a woman have long desired to fully embrace. The joining of the spiritual and erotic has been a natural progression from my previous art projects, as each experience has drawn me deeper into the female source of spirit. What has become apparent to Kathryn McGregor and I from working sacredly with the female body in our art forms is that there are no divisions between spirit and the erotic. The very nature and characteristics of a successful collaboration involves a mutual understanding of the vision, an ability to trust, a commitment to transcend fears and to allow the essence of the art to be the final guide that leads the participants to the ultimate discovery. Through private in its original conception and growth, like any good story or song, it is best shared, revered and celebrated. Creating a sacred space and an appropriate context for our art was extremely important for both of us, so that you as the viewer would see the respect and beauty of the relationship created between the artists. Women exploring the very meaning of what it is to be female, feminine, sensual, spiritual… to be fully alive! Venus Crossings is the result of joining six female performing artists with Bickel's visual art. The poetry of Kathy Lynn Treybig, the dance movement of Kathryn McGregor, the performance art of Catherine Cruz, the music and dance of Echo Mazur, the music of Laura Shuler, and the words of Joyce Luna work together in the collaborative performance/exhibit Venus Crossings. Bickel's goal is to expand society's one-dimensional view of beauty. In inviting other female artists to join her in the translating of Venus, the body and being of Venus will be re-virginized and revealed in her many forms. Bickel believes this expansion and opening up to the re-definition of Venus is imperative to healing the wounded Venus consciousness that exists in our society, that has separated women from themselves, men, and each other. She believes it is crucial that women share and offer their wisdom and experience in order to reconnect the fragmented mosaic of the feminine. Bickel's visual art is the mirror that begins the unfolding and crossing of the senses that will tell women's story of Venus through the Muses of music, dance, poetry and words. Where the Muses, set in motion, have the ability to generate women's extraordinary capacity for ecstasy. This full sensual artistic expression comes together within the live performance and exhibit of Venus Crossings. defiling, self-publishing, re-publishing, deconstructed, textural, re-textured, part/Whole, text/image, relationship,
re-nurturing, recycled collaboration. Defiled is an exploration and integration of the dynamic tension of the masculine/mind/text and the feminine/body/image as source material for artistic partnership. The installation brings together text elements from Fisher's writing and a new series of figurative studies by Bickel. Utilizing recycled published papers, text and images, the artists have sewn together a unique combination of abstract and traditional forms that leave the viewer with a deep sense of the ongoing struggle and resolve in two people's lives. Barbara Bickel and Robert Fisher joined as a couple in this collaborative art installation to document their individual and mutual journey as artists. In 1992 they installed a "courageous and creative… strange and yet familiar" mixed-media exhibition entitled "The Rebel's Journey" at the University of Calgary's Little Gallery. When the Muse and her mirror meet, a unique energy is created. So artist Barbara Bickel and
jazz diva Cheryl Fisher discovered when they began collaborating. "Her Venus Signature" is a
powerful combination of female artistic expression. Bickel's mixed media figures act as the canvas
that shapes the stories to be told and Fisher's musical compositions give voice to the storytelling.
The two women met three years ago at one of Bickel's exhibition openings, got to know one another and
decided to join forces.
Both had wanted to work with another female artist because of a strong conviction that "collaboration with other women in art is so much more inspiring." It was the philosophy of American artist Hannah Wilke that moved them. A fearless advocate of the female-based art form. Wilke coined the term "Venus Envy," which she defines as the envy of the beauty and sexuality of women. According to Wilke, because of Venus envy, women's power and beauty are seen as threatening forces and act to separate women from other women and also from men. "Her Venus Signature" is an exploration of how Venus envy has affected and shaped the lives of these two women. In the months leading up to the exhibition, Bickel would work on a painting [drawing], then give it to Fisher who would write a piece of music to go with it. Sometimes this process worked the other way with the song coming first. Fisher, known primarily as a jazz singer (she's performed in Paris jazz clubs, at Montreal's Jazz Festival and released "Slow Hand Jazz" a highly acclaimed CD on the market), has delved into a style that is "not necessarily what I'm known for." Instead of jazz, the music she's written lends itself more to a "classical New Age" sound. The result is a 20-piece art exhibit, with 16 accompanying songs that will be performed live on the two opening nights. Published in Avenue Magazine, Nov. 1996 written by Diana MurrayCo-creators: Mary Aben, Deb Anthony, Janice Atkinson, Teresa Berry, Helen Bickel, Karen Blanchet, Caroline Brown, Shirley Dalgety, Carla Davies, Diane Dunn, Leah Fisher, Vanessa Fisher, Pamela Grof, Lou Hammond, Madeleine Joss, Barb Kennedy, Alexa Lang, Karen Loza Koxahn, Susan Nabors, Alexandra Sheppard, Jan Sheppard, Teri Sonnenberg, Caroline Stengl, Karen Stotzer, Kathy Treybig, Shannon & Laura van Wittenburg, Marilyn Welles, Diana Whyte. "Sisterhood has been shattered and scattered throughout the Earth far too long…. The feminine principle and wisdom of life has been shattered. Because of our isolation from each other and the feminine principle, we have lost the centre of our management." -Kisma Stepanich In 1992 I was deep into an art project collaborating with 17 men. In retrospect, working with the men was easier as I was not facing myself so directly. Working collaboratively with women, I faced a new mirror of myself with every woman. "Sisters" began as a personal healing journey in 1994 as I found myself questioning and re-evaluating my female relationships. I invited over 50 females, who have been n my life in the past and present, to join me in exploring sisterhood through the art-making process. Twenty-nine females participated. Each woman was asked to bring a shawl and a symbol or object that symbolized 'Sisters' for them. The women were in charge of the pose and how they draped themselves. Jan Sheppard, a poet, was invited into the project to complement each image with poetry that originated from meeting with the women sharing their experience. The theme that revealed itself through the project was the importance of honoring each woman's experience and wisdom. The honoring of the women as co-creators of herstory was a contradiction to the unacknowledged struggles each woman had in her everyday existence. Bringing all the images together with their wisdom reveals the healing cycle of life. The cycle began by honoring the sisters who mother the sons, who father the daughters, who play with the brothers. The art-making process became a sacred ritual of sharing and co-creating. With the completion of each piece the intimate sacred ritual moved into the public sphere. Each woman went through a process of releasing her co-created image to the larger world. To share this transition, a group ritual was co-created and preceded the first public art opening of "Sisters." Because these individual art pieces were released and moved into the wide world, a hand-bound book (edition of five) was created to keep intact the circle of women and wisdom that were a part of this exploration of sisterhood. by B. Bickel published in Lodgepole Pine vol. 3, Number 1 p.9 1993 As patriarchy has long oppressed males in our society, I have suppressed the masculine energies within myself. In the last year I have consciously made the decision to explore, meet and get to know the masculine within and outside of myself, realizing that I had banished to the dark shadow deep within me a key part of myself. I have painted the male nude figure in my "Men As Birthers" series as a means to uncover and rediscover for myself the masculine qualities of beauty, vulnerability and creativity. Inviting fourteen men to share their journey and experience with me as co-creators in the paintings opened me to receiving their humanness. I have been amazed at and encouraged by the support of men and women in the carrying out of this project. The reactions from people upon viewing the paintings have varied from "disturbing" and "painful" to "beautiful" and "spiritual." The painting's have the ability to evoke all of these qualities and emotions. Somehow the emotions that go hand-in-hand with being human are captured within the human form. Rebirthing of the masculine within me has been a fearful and exciting experience. Removing the barrier of the 'costume' (clothes) has allowed me in a different way to connect with the male soul, outside of stereotypical and sexist roles. In most cases it has allowed me to glimpse the 'inner male,' courageously liberating himself, allowing himself to be in an open and vulnerable place of creation-in-the-making. Each painting that has been created has been a birth, exhausting and somewhat fear-filled. But as I stood with each man looking at the finished painting, we experienced the sense of awe and pride that accompanies a new birth. The darkness from which these paintings emerge represents for me the 'hidden' place where I have suppressed the masculine. I also see it as the earth's womb and being connected to our source of life. It can also be symbolic of the closed emotional space where men have been "forced" to remain strong and silent. As I reintegrate the powerful masculine energies within myself, these men are opening themselves to the feminine energies within themselves. Working with the grain of the wood, the qualities of water and earth emerged unconsciously in the paintings. They are the organic and transforming qualities of the dream state (non-ordinary reality). Healing transformation requires a non-ordinary reality in our concrete and scientific world. These paintings act as a catalyst to dissolving the polarization of men and women in our society. I celebrate the conscious sharing of the Self that I have experienced with each man that has joined me on this journey. It has reinforced for me that we no longer need to be alone and isolated as we explore all parts of our Self on our journey to wholeness. by B. Bickel published in Lodgepole Pine, Vo. 2, Number 3 "The history of life can be understood as the creation of ever more sensitive creatures in a Universe where there is always another dimension of beauty to be felt and savoured. Think of yourself that way, as a supreme power of sensitivity surrounded by magnificence." -Brian Swimme Recently I have begun a series of figure paintings that has evolved into a project of portraying men non-traditionally as beautiful, vulnerable birthers evoking emotions, rather than as stereotypical warriors and rulers evoking respect through fear and dominance. The beauty of the human figure has always excited and intrigued me. In my present paintings I respond to a wood grained surface that is covered with dark glazes of oil paint. The human figure is then created by removing the glaze and exposing the differentially stained wood grain patterns. This approach parallels the principle of "the way" in Taoism which is based on the original Sanskrit meaning of 'Tao' as "the grain in wood." This creates a work of art that is a response to the forces of Life and not dominating the work completely with ego will. This painting series is a personal endeavour in accepting masculine energy, in others and myself, as an important part of the healing journey. As long as I fear and reject the masculine in myself, I will be unable to be in this world as a liberated person. My unconscious view (image) of men as aggressive hurtful beings is, and will continue to be, contradicted in this painting series. My unconscious fears are being brought to the surface to be faced and truthed. In bringing this project out to be seen by the public, I intend to raise the same question that is brought up in me: are we ready to accept men as nurturers, loving birthers, and creators of Life? To fulfill this integrative healing journey, through the experience of painting, I am asking men to model in the nude and be co-creators of the way they will be portrayed, as it reflects their own journey in dealing with the male body in our society. The process of working and responding to each other in this vulnerable endeavour is as important to share as the finished paintings. I will be documenting the experiences of myself and the men as this painting series is created. This article will be published as part of the final exhibition. As an artist raising questions for others through visual images, I will challenge my own beliefs and those of others. Through challenging comes the opportunity for truthing our fear-based biases toward the masculine in ourselves and others. Only by over-coming these fear-based biases will we experience the deepening beauty of the reintegration of the masculine and feminine energies in both men and women. |
