Earth Bowl

There exist many objects of a religious nature. Many are associated with personages, others have to do with function in ritual and ceremony and others are tools for users to enter into spiritual realms and altered states. For some objects all these definitions may apply. The symbolic nature of many of these objects is important in reiterating the associations that make up a spiritual belief in practice. And perhaps because of the symbolism, or for more individual reasons, some objects are used to increase focus towards spiritual ends.

I have such an object, it was created through the practicality of it's function of focus for myself and from ideas about my ecstatic experience which I have explored in my art making. Here is the object.

Basically it is a small tub. The inside covered in a coat of top soil mixed with acrylic compound. The outside is wrapped in an bright orange velveteen fabric. This construction resembles other pieces I have created which have an interior of organic material with a brightly colored frame. These are honorific pieces to material, or specially to the fundamental interaction of material.

The coating of the tub occurred through using it to mix up top soil and mud mixtures with which I would paint. This layer was unintentional as I wasn't attempting to make an art piece with the tub. But in seeing the beauty of what looks like a hole into the mulch of the earth I decided to wrap the outside with an honorific cover.

However the function of the this object is to focus my ecstatic response. I discovered the use of this particular bucket of cup shape because of painting. My original stimulus was facing a drawing surface with a drawing implement in hand. Waiting in this position I could find the response that I had discovered and with which I was beginning to become familiar. At one point further on I also discovered that putting my brush into a paint bucket to be a stimulus as well, which was quite a surprise to me. Over the years I have used this to "prime the pump" before I paint to keep the response as constant as possible. Usually I have a cup on my art table just to point my marking tool to as a way to increase focus. Why this works I cannot say, perhaps I have trained this from my act of painting.

I can use my earth bowl in the same way, to focus myself towards an ecstatic response. The difference is that it is decorated in a way as such a ceremonial object can be. I have not so much used this particular object in this way but I do know it is very functional. On one occasion I brought it to an open sort of gathering where I was doing what I do, peering into the bowl as I would. At one point though a friend of mine who knows about me took a long stick and slowly pointed it into the bucket. On seeing I felt something very intensely cutting down through me in the same manner. So it doesn't have to be me who is using into the bowl to have it function for me.

The artifact I have created also has a certain level of symbolic association which is related to the thoughts I have gained about my actions and ecstatic experience. Also the symbolic nature of the shape and action I use with it are very potent as well; penetration, a portal, entering into depth, a vessel, a womb,etc.. All of these associations and others I have gathered will surely culminate as I go forward in continued exploration and performance.