Featured Guest Artist Rmay
Rmay - aka Mary Rivard - is a kaleidoscopic earth walker, hedge witch and a fire dancing pagan.
As a pioneer of generational healing, Rmay has explored the hidden dynamics operating in the family system with an emphasis on the matriarchal lineage.
An installation of Rmay's chair altars, dedicated to seven generations of eastern European women, can be viewed at mnartists.org, Rmay Rivard.
An art educator as well as an artist, she offers a variety of courses held in her studio.
Rmay is one of the guest artists at our Doorways to the Underworld show which opens on Saturday October 25th 2014 at Stevens Square Center for the Arts, 1905 3rd Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55404 and runs through Saturday November 15th 2014.
Shrines, Talisman Charms and Ancestor Altars
In my early 20s, I lived in New Orleans, where I absorbed the rhythm of a human symphony orchestrated everyday anew, on the streets of the French Quarter.
This blend of natives, tourists, transients, indigents
and wandering spirits nourished my budding pagan soul which had been starved on a diet of Catholicism and rigid Dogma. I filled my lungs with a freedom that cleansed my creative brain from a self conscious state infected by a religious shame, that only the good sisters of Holy Trinity could inflict. I had met their demons everyday as they shape shifted from beautiful transvestites to the scrubby disheveled bead lady cursing anyone who wouldn’t buy a bead from her, to Ruthie the duck lady who roller skated down the cobbles in a dirty frilly retro party dress smelling like she had shit herself.
The unnamable spirits of the Hoo Doo priestess could raise the hairs on the back of any one's neck as they blew by, disguised as a random gust of rank river wind. These were more prevalent than one would suspect and some more invasive as they scouted the desired target.
My creative process was influenced by this Hoo Doo culture. As a white witch, my talisman charms, shrines and ancestor altars reflect the potential of Hope having escaped Pandora’s box. The simplest, most innocent things can take on a complex meaning when combined together for an enchantment, blessing
or spell. So look carefully at the conjure before you.
Daughter of oZ : This is the altar that reflects me. I have absorbed all the good and ungood from the previous 6 generations of women.
There is a seepage of trauma and abuse witnessed by these women, from the many governmental overthrows of Lithuania by the Russians and Germans to these invaders' belief that women were second class citizens, required to tolerate foul moods, tempers, unwanted attention, rape and murder by the invaders.
I refuse to let any of this taint my etheric field or that of my children and grandchildren.
So as I absorb, transmute and heal the lineage, each woman who walked before me can choose to do the same.
Stella the initial altar chair
I had wanted to recognize and honor my Grandmother
who passed before I was born. This all came about from
an invitation to join a group of artists to create a piece for A Place at the Table 2005.
This led me on an odyssey to explore my eastern European
matriarchal lineage. I connected with the dearly departed
through Tarot cards and my pendulum. By asking a series of
probing questions I was able to sleuth information that has been validated by my sister Rita and her quest for our mother's holy grail. Thank you Ancestry dot com.
Without realizing it at first I had created a folkloric mythology for each woman of my seven generational time line.
