Girl In The Plasma Fields

 

Girl In The Plasma Fields, 2020,
hand-stitched cotton thread on vintage linen table cloth remnant,
25'' x 16''

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion”—Rumi 

Girl In The Plasma Fields started as a portrait of my teenage niece, referenced from a black and white photograph of her face. She hated the photo, but I thought it was beautiful, and that she looked very classical. I think the piece has an overall quality of antiquity about it. I stitched it by interlocking circle shapes together in what I call my modified chain stitch. I began it in mid-March, coincidentally around the same time that Seattle and Spain - where my niece lives -were each beginning their lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic. When I worked on this piece I felt a synergy with her - even though we live so far apart - especially when I was stitching the face. She went through a long period of fear, when she would barely leave her room, and it was around the time that I started working on the background that she ventured back out into the world. It felt significant and synchronistic. 

This piece is about perception rather than transformation, about seeing ourselves as we are beyond our physical bodies. In addition to being a specific portrait, it's also a depiction of the luminous and unchanging presence underlying every person's particular story, and of the exquisitely tuned frequency of unified consciousness-the plasma fields - which create the manifest world. The images of the pinecone, the shell, and the Spanish moon moth act as both personal signifiers and mystical symbols. I associate the pinecone with the Fibonacci sequence that my niece learned about in school, and which is found consistently in nature. Here it also represents the sacred symbol of the esoteric third eye, or seat of the soul. I stitched it in purple threads to allude to the Violet Flame of the I Am presence. The shell denotes place and proximity to the sea, but it also has a liminal quality, representing an in-between state like that of existence during the quarantine. It contains the mystery and power of spiraling infinity, and I created it in colors that are very close to the rest of the background, as if newly formed out of the swirling energy surrounding it. I chose the wings of the Spanish moon moth, placed on the figure like a piece of clothing, to signify personal identity, while at the same time acting as a metaphor for the transience of the physical body and for the multidimensional reality of our human existence.