Ahava's Altar

this work is a seminal piece for me in many ways. for one thing it represents a bridge between the art book series, such as monoprint and the more sculptural broken hearts series. in terms of my artistic timeline it's a bridge also. the artists books came first, followed by this piece, and then the broken hearts in bronze and other nonferrous metals. i think it's a highly technically and artistically successful piece.



it is made in copper, brass, silver, found objects, oil paint, silverpoint on copper, patina, feather and human hair [mine]. when it is enclosed it is a box. when you take off the lid, you can unhook the latches and it will fold out on piano hinges [i am the Goddess of handmade piano hinges]. some elements include a music box that has had it's song "John Cage-ized" by filing off some of the metal spikes that strike the notes. there's a '"A" is for Ahava' text. the fuses are items that i love. stamped near them are the words "now these are crystals". my uncle, Walter Hopps, saw the piece and tucked the feather next to the fuses. adding to both the personal and artistic history of the piece.

Ahava's Altar fully reflects my major influences: Jackson Pollock [think, Guardians of the Secret], Duchamp, Cornell, Rauschenberg, and African art [especially sub-Saharan, Kota and Kongo]. really this is a post-modern, neo-expressionist nkisi nkondi. i have a series of altars and reliquaries that are nkisi nkondi. the broken heart series is either a subset of this spirit or a close cousin to it.

on a personal note, it is also highly significant. i was working on this piece, pulling the sides from the acidic pickle when i received the news that my mother had committed suicide. it was on this day that i received the call from the coroner. it wasn't a pretty call. trust me. i've had a period of time that i have been focusing on quilting with very little time focused on sculpture. i have wondered for years if my sculpture had an artistic block related to that event. i now believe that to be the case. but i healed now. so i have one thing to say:

i'm back!