This piece was completed yesterday evening – on the summer solstice at sundown.
The name of the piece, “The Art of Drawing Spirits Into Crystals,” comes from a grimoire attributed to Johannes Trithemius (1462 - 1516), which describes how to build and use a crystal ball apparatus to communicate with spirits, kind of like an interdimensional Zoom call.
In this piece I continue to explore narratives of finding magic close to home, hiding in plain sight in the places and things we least expect, and the elements featured in the piece were found in and around my home: Textile-covered electrical cables and a length of green garden hose arc over and encircle a large quartz crystal upon which a moth sits, head down. A yellow snail slips out the lower right corner, and a blue-orange gradient cuts upward diagonally to the right.
All of these elements arise from a gaping hole; there is no clear ground upon which they rest, and everything is in a state of transition and uncertainty.
Magic harnesses and directs chaos; it is from chaos that change can occur.
