Artist Ana Mendieta, an inspiration

The web address site is a link to a video by artist Ana Mendieta, whose work has been an inspiration to me, especially to my piece, "Passion". I invite you to copy and paste this address into the search bar and view her work. It is a video which is untitled yet referred to as "Body Tracks"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjn32HizImM

"My exploration through my art of the relationship between myself and nature has been a clear result of my having been torn from my homeland during my adolescence. The making of my silueta in nature keeps (make) the transition between my homeland and my new home. It is a way of reclaiming my roots and becoming one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and cultural identity are a result of my Cuban heritage." - Ana Mendieta

The photographs of Ana Mendieta document private sculptural performances enacted in the landscape to invoke and represent the spirit of renewal inspired by nature and the power of the feminine. In her Silueta series (begun in 1974), created on location in Iowa and Mexico, Mendieta carved and shaped her own figure into the earth to leave haunting traces of her body fashioned from flowers, tree branches, mud, gunpowder, and fire. A typology of Siluetas emerged, including figures with arms held overhead to represent the merger of Earth and sky; floating in water to symbolize the minimal space between land and sea; and with arms raised and legs together to signify a wandering soul. By 1978, the Siluetas gave way to ancient goddess forms carved into rock, shaped from sand, or incised in clay beds. An exile from Cuba, Ana Mendieta was sent from her native homeland to an orphanage in Iowa at age 12. This traumatic experience had a tremendous impact on her art. She felt that, through her art, her interactions with nature and work in the landscape would help facilitate the transition between her homeland and new home. By fusing her interests in Afro-Cuban ritual and the pantheistic Santeria religion with contemporary aesthetic practices such as Earthworks, Body art, and Performance art she maintained ties with her Cuban heritage.
To view Siluetas click on the link below.
www.virginiamiller.com/.../AnaMendieta.html

I am a naturalist - born and raised in the city by immigrants - but forever drawn to the wild - to the wild indigenous self - to the feminine - to experience in the first person - wanting, wishing for all to see the beauty and unpredictability of the natural, wild world, that which we have become so removed from, especially within the self. My desire is to tap into that which resides inherently within me and process it in a way that the prominent discoveries can be shared with others.

Passion

"Passion " is my first video, both shooting and creating the finished product. The piece was inspired by Jason & Brandon, 2 fantastically inspiring artists, with whom I am studying with at the University of Oregon. The project which brought this particular piece about is called "The Sacred" and first required a reading from the book "Formless: a users guide", the chapter called "Base Materialism". I was caught off guard; I felt myself cracking a bit, cracking the well layered shell of existance in a human body fed the ideas of others. Jason and Brandon encouraged invention - something totally new. I could not discover something totally new, certainly not something untouched by my many years of life. Something unique that's being informed by my own history. How could I set free a bit of the true self, the wild self, the indigenous self that knows the experience of limitlessness, whose visited countless times the place of no separation? Journal.

To arrive at "Passion", I first had to define "The Sacred" to myself...
through extensive research and then a process by which I might transfer into clay. I have felt stuck along a trajectory; 1 that I have been on for too long; all of my clay objects seem to look the same, I needed something entirely new to renew my experience with clay.
The sacred for me is not an object or a place; it is everything and nothingness - it is an experience I've had in many different ways - an experience of no separation, full connectedness to all that is; the omni place of being. I am in this place when I'm touching everything and everything is touching me. How do I get there? Being in nature, completely alone, allows me this presence. The dichotomy of separation from humanity to arrive at a place of connectedness to all things; there, I am free of the human doing and can become more of a human being.

Pain, struggle, fear, always looking for a safe place, a sacred place, and at the same time, always pushing my limits, especially as my body's limits are changing so rapidly. I am in physical pain all the time now; one day I am able to walk, the next day I am crawling. Is the physicality of my body's condition a reflection of my state of "being"? I want to write a new story, but I also want to live a new story. What am I actually able to change? What do I effect? Why do I think that writing a new story has the potential to change my body?

The only constant is change. I am grateful for this. I decided to have an experience with clay, a new experience and also with myself.

Jason said "make yourself uncomfortable" and "kick the legs out from under it...". I initially heard that literally, but I am already physically uncomfortable. In that same instance, I knew that he did not intend to be heard in a literal sense. Directed by my senses, I chose to have my body wrapped in wet paperclay soaked cheesecloth. I couldn't do this alone and I had to document it. My wonderfully supportive partner, Michele, wrapped my body - I had to trust and accept also the lack of control. My expectation, a documentation of a transcendence and then a dry, clay mummy of myself with which I could manipulate.

I brought some of my closest loved ones in to complete this piece; they are sacred to me. My daughter, Amorina, dances; this is her passion. Shifting between my stillness and her constant movement, there is a constant overlapping, a constant beat, extremes, the ever-flowing water, the water on me which would not dry, hypothermic in a ninety degree room - the heat within - passion - spirit - sacred -



You will definitely need headphones to fully experience "Passion". Do enjoy and comment if you like.