Description: It was very early spring 1988. The leaves were just coming out and it was misting lightly. The whole setting was very ethereal because this whole tree was covered in a sort of sheen. I’ve always been attracted to trees. I am amazed that no matter what they’re forced to face or go through, they just keep on growing. This one in particular was spectacular in that it had lost a huge section of itself. A big portion of it had just come off in a storm but it just kept on growing despite it. I am struck that even though this tree is ancient and dying (which can take a long time for a tree to do) it is always creating new life even as it dies.

I listened to the story of this tree like a vibrational stenographer, recording the sound of its roots descending down and its branches reaching up. A huge portion of it is underground. I imagine this tree’s roots look just like it does up top: a huge thick tangle of subterranean wood and then, where ever the roots end, I imagine that energetically they keep expanding deeper into the earth. I imagine it’s the same for the branches, that they extend into the universe way beyond their physical expression. Maybe the roots meet up with the branches somewhere down the line as their invisible limbs wrap out into the space.

My job was taking this collection of shapes and putting them into a tapestry of sound. There’s a bit in the song where all of the sudden it breaks into a completely different rhythm. It gets heavily swung and breaks into a whole different pattern. That was my attempt to express where the tree leaves the boundaries of its physical self and the drum rolls come in and that’s where you get outside the boundaries of the tree. That’s where the tree enters its energetic life and exits into the space around it.

The music brought out aquatic landscapes and outer space images, the feeling of weightlessly floating in space or insome underwater canyon exploring uncharted territory. The low-end vibrations felt as if they were massaging my brain through my headphones. They birthed a story about a self-transforming machine elf playing the didgeridoo inside the brain of a time traveling shaman. The pineal gland is a gland that is located at the center of the brain but still separate from the brain. It is, by many, considered the God Organ and the connection our bodies have to the divine, the seat of the soul. It is also believed to be an intricate part of the mystical experience, so after my headphone / brain massage and after I found the image of the shaman, the title of the piece was coined. Pineal Masseur.

My first reaction to the music was Panic! Fear and worry! My first thought was that I would not be physically capable (being 8 months pregnant) of honoring the kinetic reaction I was having to it. The music felt very foreign to me: soulful but electronic, distressed but humorous…the word I would use is “alien.” Being as pregnant as I am, any dance I do now is more of a duet than a solo, so it occurred to me that maybe this music was the voice of the little stranger growing inside of me – someone who, despite coming from my body, is still his own entity completely independent from me and ultimately beyond my control. The opening sequence of the dance came to me first – a stirring that begins as a seed, grows, and takes over. My opening movements were carefully formed, but as the dance continued I began to give in to a sense of play, silliness, and lack of control and ultimately finding a real sense of pleasure, wonder, and sensuality in the act of letting go of my body and my head, and my need to control the outcome. I loved this project! I loved the emotional journey – from excitement to panic/fear/worry to surrender to fun and play. And transcendence.

When I first got the Collage a million questions ran through my mind. Who is the artist? What were they thinking whenthey created this? What if I don’t capture the meaning? What does this artwork smell like? – Is it earthy or is it galactic? Should it be complex or simple? Should I enhance one part of the image or the whole thing? When I just sat with the artwork and put all these questions outside of me, I began to have a series of visions, inspirations and emotions. I found myself going into the artwork and then going within myself. I could see duality of the tiny microcosm juxtaposed with the macrocosm of the Universe at large. I could see then, that this image and my part in it was just a sliver.

I hope my fragrance gives the viewer space to sink into the artwork with deeper resonance. I created it based on the energy of the artwork and the experience of going up and down a helix – much like the chakra system. When I completed the fragrance, I found that it enhanced my experience with the artwork on a deep cosmic but primal level – I felt the essence of humanity and the omnipotence of Spirit. I focused on the bottom of the artwork first – the base notes. Then I moved up the scale and worked on the middle notes (the horizon in the artwork), then the top notes (the galaxy in the artwork). It seemed to also mesh with the chakras – going from the base of the spine, up the center of the body and then out the top of the head. It was a meditative experience for me.

I thought the horizon between the bottom of the artwork and the top of the artwork was the most poignant – hence the name Gateway. Creating this Gateway fragrance was a spiritual transformation. I hope the person who experiences the fragrance in tandem with the artwork will have their own awakening. Even if they recognize their aversion – that’ssomething too. So often, we try to hide our distaste but often times, the thing we resist is the thing that has the most healing power. The fragrance is very much about loosing oneself to find oneself.

What struck me the most was the energy that she both struggled against and contained in her dance. She was exuberant, a life force… but also seemed trapped. I loved the architecture of space in her pregnant form and I tapped into the metaphor that her pregnant body represented the larger body of Mother Earth that we all share and depend on for life. We humans mine into our earth and exploit it to gain our own energy & life force… minerals, metals, oil, gas, water. Many of the dancers arm movements seem to mime vertical digging movements (mining, hydro-fracking, drilling), and her kicking and arm gestures implied a column of dimensional space above her, to the sides and bellow her, as if her symbolic life force was walled in, but barely suppressed.

In interpreting the dance as a sculpture, I used many torn, dirty layers of square man-made materials that are made from oil: foam, rubber, tar, acrylic, to form a dark column of external support. I contrasted this with a lush, circular tunnel-like interior of real green moss, that surrounds a dynamic and reflective seed of light at its core. Upon further discovery, the sculptures internal seed becomes kinetic – with gentle participation. The expression of this sculptural form is a micro illustration of a macro concept: within ourselves and every stratum of our Earth, there contains a dynamic life force that sustains us – if we, in turn, sustain it.

What struck me the most was the energy that she both struggled against and contained in her dance. She was exuberant, a life force… but also seemed trapped. I loved the architecture of space in her pregnant form and I tapped into the metaphor that her pregnant body represented the larger body of Mother Earth that we all share and depend on for life. We humans mine into our earth and exploit it to gain our own energy & life force… minerals, metals, oil, gas, water. Many of the dancers arm movements seem to mime vertical digging movements (mining, hydro-fracking, drilling), and her kicking and arm gestures implied a column of dimensional space above her, to the sides and bellow her, as if her symbolic life force was walled in, but barely suppressed.

In interpreting the dance as a sculpture, I used many torn, dirty layers of square man-made materials that are made from oil: foam, rubber, tar, acrylic, to form a dark column of external support. I contrasted this with a lush, circular tunnel-like interior of real green moss, that surrounds a dynamic and reflective seed of light at its core. Upon further discovery, the sculptures internal seed becomes kinetic – with gentle participation. The expression of this sculptural form is a micro illustration of a macro concept: within ourselves and every stratum of our Earth, there contains a dynamic life force that sustains us – if we, in turn, sustain it.