Otherling

yarn, hand felted wool, industrial wool blend felt, tin sequins, seashell, metal bells, wax thread

60 x 60 x 8 in.

Wryd

Steel, blackberry dyed cotton rope

16 x 42 x 9in.

Exteron

glaze, underglaze on stoneware, wax thread

10 x 10 x 14 in.

*Wryd and Exteron are more throughly explained on their page.

Otherling is a latch hooked coat. I see rugs as objects of spatial transitions and a protective barrier—their soft borders protecting whether they are on the wall, floor or resting on shoulders. In this piece, I was thinking about how changeling myths were actually stories of adults and children with mental illness, disability or were neurodivergent. These legends were society’s attempt to make sense of a child with a disability by providing a coherent explanation for the appearance of a different child in a family. I came across an article by Dr. José R. Alonso who has a PhD in Neurobiology about the fairy tales about changelings and autism, where he speculates: 

"The changes of the changeling are as much physical, in its appearance, as in its behaviour. They are characterized by their poor response, resistance to physical affection, obstinacy, inability to express emotions, unexplainable crying and some physical changes such as rigidity and deformity. Some are unable to speak. Some characteristics of these stories, such as the initial health and beauty of the human child, the change after some period of “normalcy” and the specific behaviors of the changelings correspond to the symptoms in some presentations of autism."

I use Otherling to consider what other fairy tales stories were used to explain away the birth of disabled or neurodiverse children in non-scientific cultures. 

Detail

glaze, underglaze on stoneware, wax thread

10 x 10 x 14 in.

Video of the bell ringing can be found on Vimeo.

Detail

Detail

Steel, blackberry dyed cotton rope

16 x 42 x 9in.

Wryd is an Old English noun word for ‘destiny.’ In Middle English it transitioned into a verb meaning ‘having the power to control destiny.’ By the 16th century, wyrd was more commonly spelt weird possibly due to the popularity of Shakespeare's Macbeth and his portrayal of the characters, The Weird Sisters, where he portrayed these characters as frightening old witches. It is speculated that this is when the word weird began to be associated with odd and unearthly rather than fate and destiny. Moreover, the portrayal of the Weird Sisters in 18th and 19th century theatrical productions of it truly solidified the adjectival meaning of weird as odd, uncanny, strange and disturbingly different. In making this carpet beater, I hope to call attention to wryd and weird.

Detail

Klimax #1

cedar, pulverized brick

41 in. x 2 in. x 13 ft.

Amaimon

glaze and underglaze on stoneware, pulverized brick, sulfur, waxed thread

15 x 15 x 18 in.

*More imformation of Amaimon on its own page.

I am drawn to words with surprising [to me] etymologies. The ancient Greek word for ladder is klimax (κλῖμαξ), climax in Latin. Klimax was also a torture device dating back to Greek antiquity and popularized in the European Middle Ages. By the 1580s, climax began to be associated with rhetorical reason. And to climax as in sexually was first recorded in 1880 but I have yet to find the actual recording but the year 1880 is historically known to be the beginning of the Progressive era in Europe and America where it began to be seen as a societal benefit to have sex education for children to adults as a early form of birth control. 

also, when having the opportunity, I show my work in groups encircled with a pulverized substance relating to the location of the installation. The pulverized substance in this documentation is a single brick found on the property of Bemis Center of Contemporary.

Detail

Detail

glaze and underglaze on stoneware, pulverized brick, sulfur, waxed thread

15 x 15 x 18 in.

Video of the bell ringing can be found on Vimeo.

Amaimon—whose name is spelt differently in different grimoires, Amaymon, Amaymone—seemed to be first identified in the magickal book Buch Abramelin, penned between 1387 and 1427 by Abraham von Worms. Amaimon also appeared in the appendix of Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, written by Johannes Wierus in 1563. Here, the demon is said to present as an old man who bestows titles and teaches philosophy and the Ars Notoria, a 13th-century magical book. With more decorative language, The Book of Oberon, 1577, expands on Weirus' explanation of Amaimon but adds little. 

In Regional Scot’s, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, he adds to Amaimon’s description, a dangerous, putrid breath and fiery or poisonous breath. It is here where Amaimon finally caught my eye. Simply, could Amaimon be the demonization of ammonia? Amaimon being an anagram for ammonia. Ammonia is known for its pungent odor and is poisonous. And before standardized spelling, ammonia was also spelled with a -y instead of an -i among other variations of the spelling in middle English (mid 12th c. to late 15th c.), armonyas, armonyak, amonya, etc. Ammonia became the standard spell by early modern English which fits the timeline of the various writings. No occult scholar has yet to make that connection. 

In early human cultures, fermented human and animal urine was used for cleaning clothes and surfaces, mordant for dying as well as many other household duties. Based on European historical accounts, and mainly what I read in Silivia Frederici’s Caliban and the Witch, women in the middle ages were responsible for the fermentation of many liquids—beer for drinking and urine for cleaning. During the middle ages and renaissance, it was also common to demonize aspects of women’s chores and tools in order to further marginalize their place in society. Additionally, ammonia was and is also a common ingredient in both alchemical work and in spell work and specifically protection spell work. 

steel, wood, black styrax

43  x 14 x 7 in.

The fairy Styrax, who seems to be associated with the Fey King, Oberion/Oberon/Oberyon—spelling is dependent on the text. They were first referenced in the 12th century, in existing but unnamed writing. The first appearance in existing writing of the demon Storax was by the Priest James Richardson in 1444. Storax, the demon, is expanded upon in another unnamed grimoire from 1577 that, only recently, scholar’s named The Book of Oberon. In the 2015 translation of The Book of Oberon, the researchers hypothesized that this book may have influenced some of William Shakespear’s plays, specifically “A midsummer’s Night Dream” and the character of Oberon, who is king of the fairies in the play, is who is named as a demon in the book[The Book of Oberon]. 

In the body of The Book of Oberon, storax—lower case—is first referenced both as the name of a resin based incense used in rituals as well as a colorant for ink used in spell writing. Later in the book, Storax—proper noun—is referred to as a demon who aids in the calming Demon Lord Oberon from dread and fear. Storax and Oberon are never referred to as a fairy or fey in the actual body of The Book of Oberon. It is likely that Storax, the demon, could be the demonization of the resin and magical ink. For millenniums, this resin was used in rituals and as an ink only to be used for sacred writing, as mentioned in the The Book of Oberon, in both in poly- and monotheistic religions, and definitely used by occultist, alchemist and Pagans from the European Middle Ages—all groups of people at one point cased as witches by the 16th century. 

Going back to Shakespeare, maybe he could have lifted Storax from The Book of Oberon for another character—the witch Sycorax, unseen character in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest(1611). She is a vicious and powerful witch, cast away to the island where the play takes place, and is the mother of Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero, the hero of the play, is stranded. I always try to be careful about how much presentism I put onto the past but I came across a quote by the poet Kamau Braithwaite:

"[Sycorax is] a paradigm for all women of the Third World, who have not yet, despite all the effort, reached that trigger of visibility which is necessary for a whole society."

Sycorax's silent role plays an important part in postcolonial interpretations of The Tempest. Because she is native to Algiers and her story is only heard through others (Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban), she is championed by some scholars as a representation of the silenced African woman. I have not dug into this because this could be Shakespeare borrowing or appropriating from another source other than The Book of Oberon.

Detail

steel, iron, glass, wood

39 x 13 x 2 in

Tyros is a demon from the Abrahamic religions who teaches the arts of divination using scrying mirrors. There is no direct or indirect connection between this demon and a real person, place, animal or thing. I made this carpet beater anyways because I find I have a growing interest in the correlation between the practice of soothsaying, having prophetic visions and other pursuits related to destiny with demonology and the act of demonizing. 

Detail

underglaze on tinted porcelain

8.5 x 4 x 8 in

Video of the bell ringing can be found on Vimeo.

Mermo was first identified in an important magickal book penned in German between 1387 and 1427 by Abraham von Worms originally titled, Buch Abramelin. This German book seems to be lost and we only know about its existence through its French translation from 1750. In 1898, it was translated into English by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1898, renaming the book, The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage: As Delivered by Abraham the Jew Unto His Son Lantech. 

In the French translation, Mermo is merely a single word entry, its name, in a subchapter, The Servitors of Ashtaroth and Asmodues from chapter 19 in the chapter, A Descriptive list of the Names of the Spirits whom We may summon to obtain that which We desire. The Mathers translation goes a step further with an amendment to the chapter of his hypothesis to the meanings of each demon in Notes to the forgoing List of Names of Spirits. He suggests that the name Mermo from the Coptic word mer means “across”, and moou meaning “water” so by his interpretation Mermo means “across water.”

I did my best to corroborate that coptic translation but to unsatisfying results—I do not think mer means across in coptic but moou does mean water. If I am trying my best to correct Matters’ rationale, mer did mean sea in Old French and derives from the Latin mare—sea or large body of water—and in Proto-Indo-European, móri, means body of water.

In The Dictionary of Demons by Occult scholar Michelle Belanger, she suggests with seemingly no evidence that Mermo could be a reference to the Greek goddess Hecate who by the middle ages became the patron of Witches. By Belanger’s rationale or other scholars they are referencing—In the famous third century writing, Philosphumena, Hippolytus writes:  

"But he manages that a fiery Hecate should appear to be flying through the air thus : Having hidden an accomplice in what place he wills, and taking the dupes on one side, he prevails on them by saying that he will show them the fiery daemon riding through the air. To whom he announces that when they see the flame in the air, they must quickly save their eyes by falling down and hiding their faces until he shall call them. And having thus instructed them, on a moonless night, he declaims these verses:

Infernal and earthly and heavenly Bombo, come.

Goddess of waysides, of cross-roads, lightbearer, nightwalker,

Hater of the light, lover and companion of the night,

Who rejoicest in the baying of hounds and in purple blood ;

Who dost stalk among corpses and the tombs of the dead

Thirsty for blood, who bringest fear to mortals

Gorgo and Mormo and Mene and many-formed one.

Come thou propitious to our libations!"

And that’s it. In my opinion, as much as I want Mermo to be associated with Hecate—this is not sufficient enough to merit even a passing suggestion. But at the same time, I have used the rationale of “just a different spelling” to justify the re-imagining of other demons. So maybe this is just a spelling change over the centuries.

From these other scholars, I could make that all make sense in my head but instead, I did further research and found information that makes more sense to me. In Middle English, which was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066 until the late 15th century,translation of the Middle Gaelic word for mermaid or merman, Merrow (Middle Gaelic: murúch translated to  Middle English: merrow). The Irish and Scottish with some of the last holdouts of the Celtic culture which was Pagan and polytheistic. So maybe Mermo is the demonization of a Merrow? This with some of Matters etymological suggestions seems like a possibility of a new narrative to me.

glaze and underglaze on tinted porcelain, brass, waxed thread

4 x 6 x 11 in.

Video of the bell ringing can be found on Vimeo.

cotton bedsheets, pulverized brick

5 x 5 x 14 ft.

Detail

Detail

steel, goat foot, wood, hemp, burlap, red ochre

42 x 12 x 5 in.

Voices that once cried out your name,

Silenced by the winds of change.

Are not our fates all cast?

No.

a memory of you still remains,

In the soil, fires, air and rain

Justice for Baal 

Put your hunger to rest 

The god, Baal, was worshiped in many ancient Middle Eastern communities, especially among the Canaanites, He has Mesopotamian origins, specifically from the Akkadian Empire (2334-2218 BCE). He was the god of fertility deity and considered one of the most important gods of that time. During this same time period, baal, in Hebrew meant “lord” and “owner.” like an honorific you put before a name. The worship of Baal was also popular in Egypt from the later New Kingdom in about 1400 BCE to its end 1075 BCE. 

The ideological struggle presented in the Old Testament between the worship of Baal and the worship of Yahweh paved the way for Baal to be demonized in later Adrahamic culture. 

Detail

Klimax #4

Found driftwood, Block Island Sound seawater

9 ft x 4 ft x 4 in

Klimax #4 was located at Race Point, Fisher Island, NY. It lasted about two weeks before the tided took it back. In the past few residencies, I have been making site specific ladders as apart of my Klimax series. This work is not directly relation to my demon work and research but sometimes its nice just to make something becasue you need to :).

Klimax(κλῖμαξ) is the ancient Greek word for ladder, climax in Latin. Klimax was also a torture device dating back to Greek antiquity and popularized in the European Middle Ages. By the 1580s, climax began to be associated with rhetorical reason. And to climax as in sexually was first recorded in 1880 but I have yet to find the actual recording but the year 1880 is historically known to be the beginning of the Progressive era in Europe and America where it began to be seen as a societal benefit to have sex education for children to adults as a early form of birth control.