These images-with-text are part of a series of ongoing meditations that arose at the crossroads of myth and technology. These works emerged for me between 2008 and 2009. They are digital collages composed of images sampled from the internet of the time and fashioned into the works you see. At this distance, I appreciate their visible pixellation, created as they were in a low-res era. And, looking again at them I feel viscerally how so very much has changed. Even so, myth tells us daily: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Another way of saying it was adapted by Jean Houston from the 4th century CE Roman poet Sallustius: A myth is something that never was but that is always happening.

Each project was spurred by an image that intrigued me enough to search it out, and the synchronistic connections that popped out kept me going. In making these works, I have almost invariably been surprised and very often startled by utterly unanticipated patterns and resonances, ripples and branchings. What has struck me again and again in this process is that ideas and images have a life of their own, and find in our minds and psyches fertile ground to propagate.

Scroll down, or click on any image below to view the work larger, along with the accompanying text art about the symbolism that emerged in the course of the making of each work. You can use your browser to further enlarge the image or text.

If you are interested to read more, scroll down a bit to learn more about what emerged for me in doing Mythworks and what they tell me.

I see mythmaking as one of our technologies. This is a view that comes from my studies, especially of the “maker” figures in myth and folklore worldwide. They are distinct from “creator” deities. The creators are often deus absconditus - a god missing in action once the clockwork is put in place. The makers—the sacred blacksmiths, builders, magicians, and artists—are much closer to the daily concerns of we mortals about food and shelter and our need for recognizing our tribe and kin through shared rituals and familiar markings. They show up in the stories we tell about ourselves. According to myth, poetry is a techne—a technology—that has its origins in the rhythm of the smith’s hammer blows on the anvil. The movement and rhythm of human creativity is a technical affair, and a mythic one.

Our persistent myths about magically creative, imaginary beings like the mad scientist, the genius artist, and the inspired mystic have very deep roots in the human psyche. Their forebears have been with us a very long time, familiar to our ancestors as Promethean wizards, or spooky shamans, or the “little people”under the mountain or near the spring or hidden among the trees who make things appear or disappear and mend what is broken. They work for a surprisingly dear psychic price and encounters with them change the world, again, and again.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger—he of the shaded reputation in our era of uncertain challenges, the lure of risky loyalties, and demands for our credulity and devotion against all reason—calls technology “uncovering;” meaning that the technologist, the maker, is able to see-into what is. The makers reveal and work with the deep and teeming qualities of nature that are already there, waiting and willing to allow ethical shaping. In my reading, Heidegger urgently warned against the dangers of ignoring the Earth’s cries against the forcible uncovering that in my artist-mythologist view is a rape of the planet that continues, at a much greater and more convulsive depth of heedless damage as the tech broligarchs march forward armed with billions, trillions of simoleons, overwhelming and crushing all in their path while claiming they intend only good. They do not. As a mythologist, artist, woman, I am calling it out. Techne is a mortal gift, which we have in common with tool-making species other than our own whose practical strategies we are learning to recognize. Our own special talents for willful ignorance make it a dire gift. Even so, myths and tales have also instructed us that our hope and goodwill always have the potential to create truly good things for life. Our unique techncial abilities are our birthright, and with this right comes the responsibility to contribute to life’s continuance on this planet according to our own good lights, natural ethical gifts and best instincts.

Things have changed very much since I began this project. We have lived into a time when we are all looking at a radical choice. We are being called to attention as a species and challenged to step up as co-creators of our reality, or be managed into the passivity that leads to obsolence and ultimately, soul death. Let’s not let anyone or anything take away our ability to make what we know to be good, and for good. And, make no mistake: we’ll have to fight for it and keep fighting for it.

ADA

ARCHANGEL

ARIADNE

ARTEMISIA

BUTTERFLY

CATHERINE WHEEL

CORN

DWARF

FAIRY DANCER

GARUDA

GUANYIN

LIVE WIRE

NAGINI

SIMURGH

SPIRAL DANCE