Art Ritual
Central collaborative altar for a grief tending art ritual day.
Event dates are forthcoming, and will always be listed right here at the top of the page!
Co-create change with Spirit(s) and other humans in a sacred and psychically safe container, using art as a tool for radical self-expression, spiritual collaboration and magick.
Altar with a circular weaving: textile talisman.
Octavia Butler wrote that God is Change.
In additional response, I say:
I believe in Change. I believe in beautiful chaos.
And:
Life is Perpetual Art Ritual.
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Art is often the sacred space we can afford to express our wildest impulses. In art-space, we can cast our widest nets, grow deeper in our roots and broaden our branches to soak up as much Sunlight or Moonlight as our human containers can hold.
Art is the place we can air our dirtiest laundry. It is the place where we befriend the skeletons in our closet. Art is erotic; desire made manifest. Art-as-magic is a space where we can conjure change by the embodied remembering of what it means to
MAKE A MARK.
We find god(s) themself in our own being, uniting our spirit with the visual or tactile outcome we prefer. Art ritual is the place we alchemize our pain, grief, and all the difficult textures of our blessed lives with something beautiful.
Art is not always pretty; the process, while sacred, can look pretty ugly. Like the archetypal Descent of Inanna. Like a chicken molting its feathers. The numinous goop inside of a cocoon, before a beautiful moth or butterfly emerges. Like a milk-scabby snake amid shedding the old skin.
Art is not always pretty but IT IS ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL.
This is not art therapy. It is art-witchcraft.
We are not just “healing,” (often a problematic reference to an end-result that emphasizes a human ability to “return to being a good worker” under capitalism )
Art witches are conjuring transformation as active agents in our own story.
Witches don’t wait for life to drop in our laps. And as we prioritize consent, and make devotions of respect, Witches otherwise don’t ask for permission. We carve the path that suits our desires for Self, in our own timeline, with the help of our allies and in embodied reciprocity.
Process: How do we Art-Ritual? Initiation, Transformation, Integration
As facilitator, I co-create sacred space with intimate groups (usually no more than 12 or 15 participants in a session. Right now, I find this work is at its most potent (and therefore garners the full attention of my practice) live, in person, and in groups.
The core feature of this type of work is a gathering, usually around a specific theme (i.e. Tending Grief or Igniting Sacred Voice). It is circle work, magickal work, and artwork.
I: We gather, ground our intention, and raise energy
We gather, and I cast a circle (in the Irish witchcraft tradition I have been taught.) Our group builds a collaborative altar in honor of the work we are about to engage with. There is usually an act of divination (a one-card pull and journal, an ogham or rune), some energy-raising with movement and/or chanting, and then
II: We MAKE MARKS
The Making. Or Unmaking. The ouroborous of life-as-art is creativity cycling with destruction; fallow resting, decomposition, and germinating in the dark. Sapling bursting through soil. Spore spawning into fruiting body. And so on. All of it. One symptom of the capitalist disease in our culture is relegating the creative into boxes of productivity- emphasizing the product rather than the process.
Creative practice is a life orientation. It is not a means to an end.
The making or unmaking may include:
Painting, moving, dancing, scribbling, splashing, dripping, scraping. Cutting up and putting back together. Weaving, or stitching. Patching up. Over-dyeing, printing, or distressing. Sometimes a burning or banishing is in order. My personal mediums for making art include water-based media, collage, fiber arts, performance art and installations (especially altars.) Any of these are catalysts for change.
If for example, the reason for gathering is to honor Righteous Rage and to conjure protection for queer people, we might use charcoal: the green steadiness of wood and the transformative power of fire met and created a tool for making bold marks. We may then carry fire further and burn pieces of what needs releasing, and use those ashes to smudge and scrape a new way of being into fruition for all who gathered that day.
III: Ramping Down and Integration.
Finally, integration. A chance to behold a physical object in symbolic reference of what was made or unmade. Some tangible piece of art- of your own soul- that came through to be transformed, or as proof of that very transformation. A talisman. An object of power. Integration will often look like sharing in circle what came through, sharing your art piece, sharing your process, private journaling, or maybe a final oracle card or moment of divination.
We will make time to process as a group what integration will look like outside our practice circle:
In your personal life, integration might look like finding a place for your piece of artwork to be at home in your daily life. Altar space? The right sunny spot on your wall in your apartment? Yard ornament? Or stitching that patch to your favorite denim overalls. Just for example.
I once painted a piece that was so dripping in rage, it was hefty for anyone to look at. Even folks with no context on what it was had trouble stomaching its gaze. I had to paint over it and donate the canvas for repurposed use. This is also an acceptable integration! Depends on the need at hand.
After integration, the circle will be “opened back up,” as our sacred container has been utilized to its fullest.
From an Art Ritual I facilitated for myself. When I had to paint my anger and my fear after escaping an abusive situation. Newspaper, black watercolor, my saliva, mugwort and motherwort (for protection, guidance, and hexing patriarchal abuse.)
About Bri: my facilitator’s philosophy
As your facilitator, I guide art ritual with these tenets in mind:
Safe(r), sacred, brave space:
When I create a sacred container, I mean it. I practice impeccable psychic hygeine, and I work with a specific deity that is unyielding when it comes to integrity, alignment, and sovereignty. This, plus whatever magic the group is also bringing, makes for a potent circle.
All aspects of art ritual are consent-based and “continental.” Treat the gathering like a smorgasbord: take what looks good to you. Maybe try something new, and if you like it, great! If not, no biggie. Nobody is required to do all the things. But it is my practice to set up a space that is supportive for folks who want to stretch the presence of their comfort zone.
Depending on the energy we’re working with, I may hire/ designate trauma-informed space-holders to attend and participate in the ritual space. But again, this is not art therapy. It is space for ecstatic release, ritual, transformation and change. It is inherently messy work! And when we agree to step into magickal ceremonial space, we consent to being a messy human among other messy humans, among messy spirits, wandering energies, and psychic escalation. That being said that’s what our circle is for.
When I cast a circle of protection/ containment it holds. And when you’re in space with me, this will always be Step One.
Animism, Anti-Capitalism, and the Liberatory Lens:
I’m a person with white privilege who is navigating whiteness and the reality of my settler colonial ancestry imperfectly, and in real time. I am in process with witnessing Land, and the collective traumas that racism, white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy continue perpetuating in my culture, my neighborhood, and my life.
I honor, to the best of my ability ( as a human with limited awareness) the myriad consciousnesses and wisdoms of non-human People. I try not to eleveate my human awareness above or situate my humanness below the Other Than Human beings I come into contact with. And when I say a conjur a circle and call in the elements, these are not “archetypes” I am working with. I am not nodding to the idea of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. When I say I am speaking to “grandmothers of the North, and of earth,” I mean it. I am speaking literally directly to all of my embodied connections with my own concept of Earth, my ancestral connections to Land, and how Earth feels on and in my body.
Queer Ecstasy:
as a queer nonbinary womxn with a fluctuating gender presentation, I love queer people, and I celebrate and conjur queer ecstasy in my creative and spiritual practice. This also means reckoning with queer-specific trauma and pain. This will always be reflected in Art Ritual. This space is always held.
Neurodivergent- Friendly and Body Kind:
All ways of being in a body and expressing the mind are welcome in Art Ritual space. I navigate this imperfectly as someone with very high sensory sensitivity, and a proclivity toward empathy for what I don’t understand. I try not to assume, or project my abilties or my sensitivities onto others. Art Ritual is a place where experiments and recommendations are encouraged, and learning is always happening. As humans, we negotiate with and meet our limits, and in Art Ritual we make the space to honor that!
