Large Bowls in 'Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined' exhibit in Allentown, Pennsylvania

The big bowls are lit in the gallery at Cedar Crest College
in Allentown, PA!

See video of the lit bowls here if it is not playing:
http://youtu.be/XKCo8gCKlI8

Opening Today!

Sept. 12 - Oct. 17, 2014
Artist Reception: Oct. 16; 6:15 – 7:45 p.m.
Harmon Hall of Peace, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA

Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined

Sept. 12 - Oct. 17, 2014
Artist Reception: Oct. 16; 6:15 – 7:45 p.m.
Harmon Hall of Peace, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA

Since 2010, LouAnn Shepard Muhm and Tiffany Besonen have been collaborating to create a collection of incantation bowls, in which Muhm’s incantations against fears are inscribed on Besonen’s translucent sewing pattern bowl forms. In 2010, Muhm and Besonen were educated about the large numbers of ancient Babylonian incantation bowls, 6th-8th Century CE, that have been unearthed in Iraq since the 1990s. Ancient incantation bowls are shallow bisqueware forms with a simplified character painted in the center and an incantation against a particular fear inscribed starting along the rim and spiraling toward the illustration. Each bowl and its incantation were created for a specific family’s plea for assurances against particular fears. The bowl was then buried upside down under the threshold of the family’s home. This collaboration between artist Tiffany Besonen and poet LouAnn Muhm has resulted in bowls containing incantations against cancer, violence, poverty, ignorance, and loss of hope, as well as in a series of Besonen’s dreamlike doors within doors, echoing the idea of the threshold. The results are powerful and hopeful.

Gifts of Collaboration

Reassurances: Incantation Bowls Reimagined
(sewing pattern bowl forms containing LouAnn Muhm's
poetry and doors within in doors paintings) is being
installed this week at the Lachaise Gallery. Like a child
before Christmas, I am counting down the days until we go
to Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Details
and an exhibit summary statement are here.

Like most artists and teachers, I have always been good at
working alone. So, this collaboration thing is kind of new
for me. Of course it helps that I have a collaborator who
gets me, as only a dear friend can. We have found that
poetry and art-making have some things in common and
some differences, but they are both a mixture of hard
work and awe. The results are always gifts.

I can not fully explain my excitement when LouAnn hands
me the gift of her words. Having first access to new poetry
is a gift in itself, but then responding to new poetry that
hasn't been out in the world yet is pretty extraordinary.
This is the motivating and daunting part, someone is relying
on me to create something new from those words--
someone who trusts and inspires me. I want to give back.

Now, the collaboration is bigger than us, and sent out into
the world. Reassurances are always gifts.

Incantation Bowls nested, packaged and ready to send.