“Sanctuary” by Deborah Kennedy
What appealed to me about this work is how it expresses ideas on multiple levels. A quality I find most important in a work of art. Art, in its essence, must be a communication and a transformation. A catalyst for growth and ethical evolution. An inspiration to imagination. In this work multiple elements harmonize to create a unified experience and work to those ends.
Sanctuary implies Sanctity, the experience of the Sacred. A place, a presence, a quality. Here we have the elements of an altar. But in this case without the modern implications of religious subservience imposed by fear of retribution. The power of the patriarchal god has no place here. This is the hearth, the garden, the forest, the field; the altars of the goddess which is life and its cycle. Objects are placed there which echo our dependence, our vulnerability and our interconnectedness with nature. In their presence acknowledgement is made of kinship. The ofrenda of the earth – our remembrance and gratitude.
The books make their place here not as subjects of authority or worshippers of hierarchy, but as elements of the harmonics of nature flowing around the altar like stars slowly orbiting a galaxy, or the stately circling of birds riding an updraft. Components of a slow dance of great depth in the evolution of life and its thread backward in time. Each book being a repository of the past as a living record and as a story continuously unfolding – pages added like leaves growing on a tree. The living history of each one vital while being part of a larger library. Each one complementing and expanding on the greater story. The loss of even one page is a break in an ancient narrative. The destruction of a book? A cruel mutilation of our understanding of our place and part to play in nature.
Finally, there is the implication of incompleteness of the library, not through oversight, but more a sense of what is real but lies beyond our perception, or awaits our passage through ignorance, or is beyond the horizon of the future. There must be more books. The force of life is stronger than the force of destruction. The author of life is still writing. So there will be more books to come, which is a message of hope.
And that is the story I read in this artwork.
~ Clayton Moraga