622J. Magdal side 1-“Tower” or “Castle” within, an English sea rock silver brass and steel sculpture that can be worn.
No.622J_ Magdal 1-2017
Size: 2.5” wide by 5” long. Material: English sea rock, silver, brass, copper.
This piece was conceived from contemplation and crossing multiple ideas and readings
together.
I used the photographic project Artic Melt to display the piece because of its perfect visual fit.
I was heavily researching religions to better understand how consciousness plays into religious
thought, at the same time I was traveling the southern coast of England. Feeling overwhelmed from
the vast amounts of information, no sleep and driving. I sat meditating on a red stony
beach. I think I fell asleep, and woke to a sharp pain in my bum, and that is where the rock was
found.
To me the rock is so interesting- I spent time with the rock as we traveled, it appeared to
change, mutating to fit my thoughts on different readings, even crossing platforms to
contextualizing itself into other projects that I’m working on, like Artic Melt, indigenous peoples.
Looking at the rock close I see a face, sometimes veiled and changing in the light. The other
side is very porous and looks like a moon rock. The more I looked at the rock the more I could
see, consciousness embodied – shifting perception and connection to What? -more, The more I
looked the more could see.
I enjoyed what I thought to be some interesting information, which I have listed here with sited
sources.
This woman Magdalene became the embodiment of Christian devotion, which was defined as
repentance. Yet she was only elusively identified in Scripture, and has thus served as a scrim
onto which a succession of fantasies has been projected. – Like consciousness. In one age
after another her image was reinvented, from prostitute to sibyl to mystic to celibate nun to
passive helpmeet to feminist icon to the matriarch of divinity’s secret dynasty.
How the past is remembered, how sexual desire is domesticated, how men and women
negotiate their separate impulses; how power inevitably seeks sanctification, how tradition
becomes authoritative, how revolutions are co-opted; how fallibility is reckoned with, and how
sweet devotion can be made to serve violent domination—all these cultural questions helped
shape the story of the woman who befriended Jesus of Nazareth that rose from the dead.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-mary-magdalene-119565482/
Mary is distinguished from all others of the same name as “The Magdalene,” which identifies her
with her place of birth, just as Jesus was called “The Nazarene” because of His association with
Nazareth. Magdala means “tower” or “castle,” and in the time of Christ was a thriving, populous
town on the coast of Galilee.
https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Mary-Magdalene
Scripture References—Matthew 27:56, 61; 28:1; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1-19; Luke 8:2; 24:10; John
19:25; 20:1-18.