Sphinx Tapestry (Addendum)

 

Sphinx Tapestry (Addendum), 2021, hand-stitched cotton thread embroidery floss on linen, 25" x 16"

 "Functional mythology has been replaced by inadequate ideology." - Jordan Peterson

This is another piece that contemporizes an ancient Greek myth. The sphinx is made up of bomb shapes, and the wing is made up of thermometers. I stitched the background using water drop shapes, and it contains four symbols that surround the figure. Two of them denote a sense of urgency (the hourglass and the bell), and two of them point to our lowest and highest potential as humans (the saw and the circle). The saw refers to this quote from the Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich: "In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches." It's placed low under the Sphinx figure, in contrast to the circle at the top. The circle here is more complex and has layered meanings. On a mundane level, it represents the sun that's warming the planet. On a profound level, it symbolizes our transcendent wholeness, the one consciousness that we are all a part of. The idea of universality is embedded in this piece and is the antithesis of the current divisive mind virus that's been infecting much of Western culture. 

A story about the Sphinx by the 8th Cent B.C. writer Hesiod is told in the book Symbols And Legends In Western Art by E.S. Whittlesey: (The Sphinx) frequented a high rock near Thebes and waylaid travelers with the riddle, "What walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?" The answer is "Man"-in infancy, prime of life, and old age. Those who failed to give the correct answer were hurled to their deaths from the rock. I imagine us now collectively on a precipice with a riddle in front of us. The 'Addendum' of the title points to the idea that we need new questions: what does it mean to be human, and who are we really? The Sphinx sits on a coffin decorated with stylized hemlock. A passage about Socrates is on the opposite page in the same book: (he) was allegedly condemned to death for corrupting the youth and for impiety. The latter charge was for his belief in the immortality of the soul. Although I didn't know what he was killed for when I chose hemlock as a symbol, the story connects beautifully to my addendum question. Socrates spoke 'truth in the face of danger', an idea known as 'parrhesia' in Greek. It seems like a necessary, even urgent, imperative for our times. 

Mistress of Animals

 

Potnia Theron of Pandemics, 2021, hand-stitched cotton thread on dish towel remnant, 7.5" x 5" 

 

“We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it."

- Albert Schweitzer 

This piece contemporizes the myth of Potnia Theron (Mistress of Animals) in the context of not only the possible zoonotic connection to the Covid-19 pandemic, but to our treatment and exploitation of animals in general. This motif is widespread in ancient art from the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East showing a central human, or human-like, female figure who grasps two animals, one to each side. It's loosely based on an image of a Greek vase painting of a winged Artemis Potnia Theron. I exchanged the traditional Panther and Stag with a Pangolin and Mink, (stitched in red for blood), with a bat incorporated into the dress.

Eris/Discordia

Eris/Discordia, 2021, 14.5" x 14.5", hand-stitched cotton thread on machine stitched dish towel remnant.

"The most we can do is to dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress"  

- Carl Jung 

With this piece, I'm contemporizing the Greek myth of the goddess Eris (Roman name Discordia). Inspired by contemporary Afghan War Rugs, the figure is referenced from an ancient Greek black-figure kylix ceramic painting. This Eris has no nationality or ethnicity or race or religion, and I see her as one of the personifications of humanity's collective shadow. She is, however, the goddess who calls in war and thus represents the asymmetry of overwhelming military might and state terrorism. Her hair becomes a blast ball, her tattooed arms hold an assault rifle, her wings have images of fighter jets, and the hem of her dress is decorated with dollar signs. She's surrounded by bombs, helicopters, grenades, bullets, blood drops, and tanks. 

Here's a description of her from the website The Theoi Project, a site exploring Greek mythology and the gods in classical literature and art: "[Eris] delights in the tumult of war, increasing the moaning of men. She is insatiable in her desire for bloodshed, and after all the other gods have withdrawn from the battle-field, she still remains rejoicing over the havoc that has been made." She was the mother of the Kakodaimones (Cacodaemons), evil spirits which plagued mankind.

It's interesting that these qualities were connected to a Goddess. Usually, I think of the Feminine as being associated with nurture, compassion, and relationship, even though soldiers in many contemporary societies are also women. I came across a book called Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, by Charlene Spretnak, and learned a lot about the origins of classical mythology. Spretnak writes that "...for thousands of years before the classical myths took form and were written down by Hesiod and Homer in the seventh century B.C., a rich oral tradition of myth making had existed. Strains of the earlier traditions are evident in the later myths, which reflect the cultural amalgamation of three waves of barbarian invaders. These invaders brought with them a patriarchal social order and their thunderbolt God, Zeus." This idea seems very apt when thinking about Eris, even in a contemporary context. Perhaps the power of a true Feminine archetype is rising again, and war and war mongers will no longer be worshiped or valued in a world in dire need of healing. 

The Sacrifice Of Gaza Tapestry

The Sacrifice Of Gaza Tapestry, 2020, hand-stitched cotton thread on dishtowel, 15.5'' x 25''

                                             

The Sacrifice Of Gaza Tapestry is stitched in its entirety in my mosaic style, and each medium-sized square shape has an average of twelve stitches. My three-dimensional mosaic piece The Sacrifice of Gaza (2009), is the direct progenitor of this tapestry. With an obvious reference to War Rugs, the background portrays fighter jets, bombs, surveillance cameras, guns, bullets, and flash grenades. The 'Sacrifice' of the title refers to a world that has turned its back on Gaza, and specifically to Western complicity. In that way, the bombs and the other machines of war represent me, dropped in my name while the mainstream media, by its omission, tells me it doesn’t matter. The world’s power system remains silent and complicit while Israel bombs Gaza anytime it feels like it, including in the summer of 2020, with constant bombardment during a world pandemic. I think of 2014 when the explosive power that Israel fired on Gaza by land, sea, and air far surpassed one of the atomic bombs the United States dropped on Japan in August 1945. Over 550 children were killed during that summer of massacre. 

And there's the Great March of Return, which began on March 30, 2018. The demands were simple: An end to the now 12-year siege on Gaza, and the ability for refugees, which make up more than 70% of Gaza’s population, to be allowed to return to their homes. Over the course of one year, scores of Gazans, mostly young men, were shot and killed, or severely injured, by Israeli snipers stationed along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel. On just one day, May 14, 2018, more than 1,300 protesters were shot by the Israeli army. Sixty people were killed. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has placed the death toll as of March 29, 2019 at 266, including 50 children, three medics, and two journalists. Doctors Without Borders called it “unacceptable and inhuman” violence by the Israeli army against Palestinian protesters. This is what United Nations Special Rapporteur Michael Link wrote about Gaza: “There is no comparable situation in the world...where a substantial population has endured such a permanent lockdown, largely unable to travel or trade, and controlled by an occupying power in breach of its solemn international human rights and humanitarian obligations.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/04/sacrificing-gaza-the-great-march-of-zionist-hypocrisy/

 

Camel Pull-Toy Tapestry

Camel Pull-Toy Tapestry, 2020, hand-stitched cotton thread on monk cloth, 13"x12".

 

"Ain't gonna study war no more" - lyrics from an American gospel song

Camel Pull-Toy Tapestry is stitched in my faux weaving style and is directly influenced by War Rugs and by my continuing interest in woven textiles. It's based on my Camel Pull-Toy sculpture, which I created in 2005 in reaction to US warmongering in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those wars got me interested in Islamic art and culture as I observed the ubiquitous propaganda and demonization of Islam in the US during that time. Like the original version, this piece refers to themes of US Imperialism and hegemony-along with its allies - in the region of Southwest Asia. The tapestry's two - dimensional format enabled me to expand the narrative by filling in the background with fighter jets and bombs. 

I chose the dromedary camel as a shorthand signifier that makes an immediate connection to a specific geographic location, and not as any definition or judgment of a culture. The camel in the context of a child's pull-toy has political connotations that refer to Islamophobia and Western domination, pointing to its manipulator and to the hubris and terror of Empire's military might.