Artist’s Statement

Sympathetic magic is based on the belief that one person, thing or event can affect another at a distance as a result of a sympathetic link existing between them. There is corollary to this definition that tends to be dismissed; namely that the effects produced in the other are simultaneously produced in the self.

To what extent does this concept function as magical thinking, where causal relationships between people, things, or events are perceived or imagined due to inner yearnings, hopes, desires, and fears? And to what extent are events, objects, and even human beings connected with one another on some mysterious deeper level?  According to Bell’s theorem,

“once two atoms have been together as part of a molecule, no matter how far distant they are from one another, each atom acts as if it is still in communication with the other.” (1)

Likewise, the metaphor of Indra’s net from The Flower Garden Sutra:

“In the heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact is everything else.” (2)

I believe that the act of art-making forges a sympathetic link between the artist and world around her, real or imagined; a relationship that nourishes experience, and that builds a vehicle for communication with the living and the dead, the seen and the unseen.

1. Zukav, Gary. The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. New York: Bantam Books-William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1979, p. 257.

2. Ibid, p. 239.