Art and Altars 1
How I Interpreted Descendant Art & Altars with Figuration
I’m posting my descendant art and altars from last year mostly to share altar format ideas. And, from my experience creating altars, to suggest art and altars can be as much about dark as about light. The future is unknown, and changes constantly. I’m constantly exploring a range of emotion and actions through art. A lifelong path, I hope.
Dia de Los Muertos is the progenitor to Descendant art and altars. The idea has evolved for me since about year 2000. My longtime work with market transformation in sustainability suggested to me an altar program celebrating descendants to complement Dia de Los Muertos celebrating ancestors. And like Dia de Los Muertos, I feel Day for Descendants Art & Altars should be open source. Hence, the idea of ‘satellite shows’ that anybody, anywhere can do for themselves. And this blog, to help share where this started. but imagine where in a decade or two what Day for Descendants might encompass, with countless people from the arts to spirituality to family life to leadershop +++ … what meanings and experiences might be expressed in an annual celebration plus daily life.
I touchstone image for me is ‘wrestle,’ which was initially a figurative and has evolved to take on some abstraction elements. In Wrestle, putti grasp at columns of smoke from an extinguished candle. (In the ancient classical world, putti were manifestations of spirits or genii, who influenced human lives.1) Their effort is symbolic of my efforts to understand death and impermanence. Buddhism has taught me about this in my mind. In my heart, I find it difficult and elusive. Thus, the ‘eternal grasp’ at death.
The putti are intertwined, with each figure’s limbs threaded and alternating in turn with the others’, one on top of the other, suggesting our corporeal and spiritual interdependence.
The evolution of a pieces is show below.
I’ll share more of my early interpretations of descendant art and altars in other Mulch posts.
https://www.wmoda.com/putti-in-porcelain/#:~:text=In%20the%20ancient%20classical%20world,lovers%20as%20harbingers%20of%20passion