There are only three possibly meanings of touch
( at the atomic level ) :
1) two objects influence each other
2) two objects influence each other significantly
3) two objects reside in the exact same location
Because atoms are not like marbles — they don't have hard boundaries, just places of high density and low density.
So if 'touching' means that atoms influence each other, then they are always touching.
everything you touch, you change
everything you change, changes you
Octavia Butler
![ballet0885[1].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/79f915_bb9ad14492864bfdb121f637066441b5~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_528,h_371,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/79f915_bb9ad14492864bfdb121f637066441b5~mv2.jpg)
Being that our sensory capacities are so far reaching, we must craft systems of containment to incubate the potential for a deeper experience of what lies within. This installation for the Asheville Ballet draws on the concept of Noren, Japanese partition curtains traditionally hung at the entrance to shops.
The transparency of the linen gauze allowed for subtle manipulations of light and motion, inviting a sense of warmth and permeability to the exploration of boundaries, the mutability of identity, and the continual renegotiation of self in relation to the environment.
Containers aren’t limited to physicality. Psychologically, we utilize techniques like compartmentalization to improve productivity. Emotionally, we withhold parts of ourselves from others, deciding who has earned a deeper access. We contain time through schedules, and spirituality within religious frameworks. A home is a container, a shelter. Home is also a feeling, a holding, a sense of belonging.
But all too often structure calcifies towards control or obfuscation. It is a lifelong practice, to continually return an awareness of our chosen realities, to feel into the limits of our ever-evolving containers, and safely allow space for new things to enter and grow into their natural form.
In Shade Grown at the Lure of Home, I reflected upon the allure of permanence, deconstructing a parasol to reconfigure in the form of an umbrella rig, a type of fishing lure.
I playfully crafted tiny lures to adorn the ribs, considering my own desires as well as the nature of desire itself.
Fatal Fissure (below) embodies a more intangible container — those mechanisms we employ psychologically to armor ourselves against the potential of pain.
I do believe that this work is a spell, in this case, a petition to disarm my heart and mind, to conjure a deeper awareness of this reality, and find more softness and acceptance.
This is not a new idea. Throughout history we have sought ways to coax the power of the divine into a physical object, creating a lens through which intentions may be clarified, and ultimately, magnified. Objects imbued with intention have power only through belief: this is the idea behind a talisman.
Perhaps this may be understood in terms of a visual reminder — that the shifts we desire to bring into physical manifestation require new patterns of thought formed only through diligent attendance, new neural pathways which may, at first, seem foreign or tenuous.
Its almost as if I reach towards some kind of mantra in these sculptural meditations, one negotiated by my hands prior to language of the mind. In this rendering of Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent deity of Mesoamerica, I dwell on those more Venusian qualities of balance and devotion.
Through braiding hundreds of strands of yarn into rope, I interpreted the physicality of balance as the integrity of muscle, all fibers working towards a single goal.
There is inherent movement in stillness, a constant firing of tiny contractions which may seem effortless from the outside. In the same way that we wait for our desires to come to fruition, a snake waits for the perfect moment to strike. Waiting is not passive, but rather an active devotion to the present moment, to hold ourselves with integrity during intervals which may seem lacking in external progress, but are, in actuality, amassing potential energy.
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There are many kinds of spells for many kinds of moments and many kinds of needs.
