I chose more than 5 limitations for my project, not intentionally really, but many seemed to work with the structure that I came up with.
-Adopt various professional roles- mystical entomologist
-Work in the world (create a ritual, casting a circle, which deems whichever space I choose to be my "studio" for a period of time, the circle must be broken each time I leave my work or am done for the day)
-Go for expeditions, surveys, investigations ( see last bullet)
-Create ground rules for your project based on arbitrary decisions and random choices- choosing suggested structures for rituals and practice found in a Wiccan handbook for creating your own tradition... basically using intuition, preference and need.
-Create participation between subject and environment (the casting of the circle with my own ritual objects which represent creation and destruction, important balance when making art or concepts.)
-Work with people from different disciplines (going on investigations and expeditions with a professional entomologist, speaking with a very knowledgeable pagan woman about being a solitary
Wiccan practitioner)
In my adventures and research as a mystical entomologist over the past couple of weeks I have narrowed down my project to a few key ideas;
First, is the idea of the artist's studio. I talked extensively to a woman who has seemingly endless knowledge of pagan religions, and the topic of "sacred space" kept arising, this is a space which is your sanctuary, an extension of your mind and a separation from daily life, where creativity, reflection and balance are derived for. From the Wiccan handbook, I am adopting the ritual of "casting a circle," in which I first envision my work and intentions, then sprinkle salt in a circle to create the perimeter of my work space. Salt is used in almost every culture for purification and protection, from Roman Catholic's holy water to Indians using salt on wounds to draw out unhealthy spirits. Within my circle will be an alter with my sacred tools, ritual objects, and materials that I will use for any project that I am working on. Not all of my work needs to be done in a circle, but most processes that lend themselves to this sacred space will be done there, as well as performance.
My research as an entomologist has culminated two ritual objects, which together symbolize creation and destruction, balance, new moon and full moon. These are reminders of the creative process, ideas can always be thrown out in favor of more appropriate ones, emphasizing the importance of movement and change and waxing and waning of thought and practice. The first object, which is more or less a wand, contains dead flies inside of copal, or tree sap (the beginning stages of amber.) The sap preserves the bugs and symbolizes time in both pieces. The flies are important because they represent reflection and new life from death. An animal had been killed by a dog that we were watching, and was dragged far beneath the house, right underneath our porch. Flies began to swarm, they fed on the death underneath and themselves died on the porch, where I then collected them. Their whole existence was made possible by this death, they lived and died as an important part of a natural process of transformation. The second piece is an object that contains a Luna moth in rosin. I found this moth on the full moon while on an expedition with an entomologist, who explained that the moth was a fully matured female, and that these specific moths' exoskeletons grow over their mouths once they become adults, allowing them to only use this final burst of energy to mate and then die. This symbolizes raw creativity, a fluid motion of working without editing, doing rather than talking about doing. I collected it and followed the procedures instructed by the entomologist for preservation. Personally, this was mildly traumatizing and I would prefer to find dead bugs from now on, rather than hunting them. But it was an important experience for me, and retrospectively, a good one.
The whole idea of this project is to create a personal ritual for project making, which can be used as a prologue to any type of performance. So in essence, it is a project so begin all projects in the future. A structure and support for my own process as well as the birth of a persona.
excerpt from The Art of the Project text, pg. 17:
"Seen from the viewpoint of the present, the project is a course of action that is underway, ongoing, in process, usually as a period of accumulation of data, and very often as a period of repeated actions that a likely, in terms of eventual documentation, to yield either a sequential format or a serial format.... The potential effects of serialism as exploited by different project exponents can range from flattening uniformity to hypnotic absorption, in which case the project may take on the characteristics of a ritual."
( I am creating a ritual, which in a sense is an aspect of an ongoing project in itself, and a structure that lends itself to repetition, at least in process.)
Also, from pg. 18:
"...many projects involve journeys, and what makes a journey conform to the art of the project are the ground rules that determine it's spirit."
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