Dimensions variable. Approximately 45 x 34 x 14 inches, Yarn, Upcycled plastic packaging (stuffing), Sewing pins (to attach the piece to the wall)

The installation Liminal Consciousness is a soft sculpture of organic, body-like masses covered in multi-colored mushroom forms.

Referencing Tasili Mushroom figure paintings found in Algerian caves, (7000-5000 BC), Donna draws parallels between prehistoric, masked, shamanic healers, who appear to grow both Reishi and Psilocyben mushrooms from their bodies, and 21st-century consciousness.

exencephaly, 22 x 14 x 13 inches, Yarn, mannequin head, metallic paint, silver leaf. 2020

This is the second in a series of smaller sculptures done while sheltering in place. Continuing with the theme of fragmented body parts overgrown with organic masses, these mannequin heads worked in a home studio.

Using metallic paint and silver leaf, the skin color of the mannequin reflects the true colors of classical sculpture. It has been discovered that instead of the pure white marble seen in museums, paint remnants on the sculptures reveal that they were painted in a variety of vibrant colors, including gold or silver leaf. The white standard continues because they fit a convenient narrative.

PPE mannequin head, yarn, up-cycled plastic waste (stuffing), 2020

Awareness shifts when balance is disrupted and the unseen becomes visible. Often crisis is a necessary pathway to insight, transformation and growth. These sculptures spotlight our interdependence with microorganisms, shifting their proportions.

Covid is just one of many warning signs that we have a distorted view of our dominion over the pantheon of beings with whom we share this planet.

18 x 25 x12 inches. Mannequin Head, Yarn, Up-cycled plastic (stuffing)

This group of sculptures pulls from the work I’m doing in my training as a Shaman and our connection to other-worldly experiences.

47 x 29 x 26 inches, Yarn, Mannequin, up-cycled plastic bags, 2019

My sculptures are an embodiment of humanity’s entangled relationship with the microorganisms that live on and in us - our Microbiome, Viral Biome, etc. We are Hybrids, not fully human. We live in symbiotic/mutualistic relationship with these species, providing them nutrients in exchange for digestion of our food, regulation of our immunity, and in some speculations, control our behavior. (See my post about the Microbiome.)

The sculptures can be seen as a more accurate reflection of these relationships, bringing their importance to scale. Or, perhaps one potential outcome of the Anthropocene, where our bodies become the disregarded resource, used with abandon by the microorganism, consumed and plasticized over time. They are filled with up-cycled plastic waste as stuffing - bags accumulated from other merchants I work with. Plastic internalized. Micro-plastics have now been found inside our gut.

hybrid2

2019 Yarn, up-cycled plastic shopping bags. 30 x 28 x 17 inches.

Working on a smaller scale, this amalgam of human, plant and micro-organism reminds me of Winged Victory of Samothrace. Something about the wing-like forms at the top and the way the form falls down the leg.

Microorganisms and plants are no longer viewed as autonomous entities, but rather as "holobionts", the host plus its mutualistic microbes.

My training as an Herbalist highlighted the codependence between Flora, fauna and microbe, each requiring the other for survival. These are permeable constructs.

It also speaks to the Anthropocene - and humanity’s lack of connection and felt responsibility for the landscape. It is stuffed with up-cycled plastic shopping bags, which are visible through the gaps in the crochet.

Plastic internalized, ever-present.

barrier

mannequin head, yarn, up-cycled plastic, silver plate, acrylic paint.

Inspired by visualizations while training as a Shaman in the Irish tradition. I’m also interested in referencing classical sculpture, which is presented in museums as white marble. However, they were originally vividly painted in bright colors or gold or silver leaf.

Celtic warriors painted their faces to transform their mental state before battle. This face paint takes on a modern twist - a silver leaf face mask.

Hybrid5 Yarn, mannequin arms, up-cycled plastic packaging, 2019

Microorganisms and plants are no longer viewed as autonomous entities, but rather as "holobionts", the host plus its mutualistic microbes.

My training as an Herbalist highlighted the codependence between Flora, fauna and microbe, each requiring the other for survival. These are permeable constructs.

It also speaks to the Anthropocene - and humanity’s lack of connection and felt responsibility for the landscape. It is stuffed with up-cycled plastic shopping bags, which are visible through the gaps in the crochet.

Plastic internalized, ever-present.

Hybrid3

2019 Yarn, up-cycled plastic shopping bags. 30 x 28 x 17 inches.

Microorganisms and plants are no longer viewed as autonomous entities, but rather as "holobionts", the host plus its mutualistic microbes.

My training as an Herbalist highlighted the codependence between Flora, fauna and microbe, each requiring the other for survival. These are permeable constructs.

The work also speaks to the Anthropocene - and humanity’s lack of connection and felt responsibility for the landscape. It is stuffed with up-cycled plastic shopping bags, which are visible through the gaps in the crochet.

Plastic internalized, ever-present.

Hybrid4

Yarn, up-cycled side table, up-cycled shopping bags 53 x 35 x 42 inches, 2018

Global warming, the Anthropocene, Humanity's impact on our planet is an ever-present thought. We are part of a macroorganism, in a mutualistic relationship with every other part of the planet.

This sculpture represent an amalgam of plant, human and the microorganisms that live within our gut, digesting, regulating inflammation and driving behavior.

My work includes Social Practice. Last year I launched Spiral Herbal Remedies after training as an Herbalist for 3 years. We were taught to respect and recognize the interdependence of plants, humans and the microorganisms that affect our health.

Yarn conjures home and care based activities - making throws, sweaters, scarves. They call out to be touched bringing people in close, where a surprise is revealed. The sculptures are stuffed with up-cycled shopping/grocery bags alluding to the Anthropocene as well as domestic activities.

seat at the table

39 x 26 x 21 inches Yarn, upcycled grocery bags (stuffing), stool. 2018

This full figured, generative body is claiming a seat at the table. Herbalists in indigenous cultures are revered, seen as central to a community, essential for life. They have power.

I descend from Irish Herbalists on both sides of my family. In the 1700's the native Irish were forbidden to have a profession, own land or speak their own language.

My family had no consciousness of this auspicious past until I attended a residency in Ireland in 2017.

Reclaiming this knowledge is an act of resistance, a radical feminist act.

My work has always been about re-empowering the traditionally feminine roles I've embodied - Mother, Nurse, Herbalist along with Care-based activities like crocheting.

It is possible to sense the heft of hanging masses?

2018, Vintage Stand Mixer, Vintage metal stool, yarn, upcycled grocery/shopping bags (stufing), 54 x 30 x 26 inches

A 1950’s era stand mixer becomes body when perched atop a vintage stool. The crocheted masses hanging from the mixer allude to the generative body, the maternal, the weight of responsibility that comes with caring for helpless living beings.

The stand mixer alludes to a time in history where the “ideal” woman was sequestered in the home, confined to domestic activities and told to find happiness in the objects that would make her life easier. An entire industry was built and still persists around these gadgets. This stand mixer would have been coveted as a symbol of affluence.

Part of a costume made for Art In Odd Places: Body, New York City. See Performance: Hell Hath No Fury, 2018

Becoming Cailleach based on the Sheela na gig, whose likeness appears on hundreds of Romanesque churches throughout Ireland and thought to be an iteration of the Cailleach. She has merged with Yoni, Tree Goddess, and the Willendorf Venus, representing the cyclical nature of life and death, abundance and infinity.

Yarn, batting and upcycled grocery bags for stuffing. 2018

From my collaboration with Kathy Halfin in the performance Hell Hath No Fury, which took place during Art In Odd Places: Body, NYC, 2018

Revisiting and inhabiting our #metoo moments in our performance we moved through the various stages of grief until finally embodying our goddess selves. I became a hybrid of Cailleach, the Irish Creator-Goddess and the Tree Goddess. Read my blog for more info and photos re this performance.

Photo credit Emma Yi

crowning

Yarn, up-cycled grocery bags

34 x 22 x 15 inches

This anthropomorphic form seems to be pushing a ball of yarn from its interior, as if giving birth. Crowning is the moment in birth when the baby first comes into contact with the outside world.

Birth is the moment of transition between life on this planet and existence in another realm.

This is the realm of the Shaman, Healer, Midwife and Artist, who navigate the spaces between realities.

The ability to create life was seen as sacred and honored in ancient cultures. Fertility sculptures found across the globe are a reflection of this reverence.

But fertility isn't just about giving birth. It is about the cyclical nature of life, recognizing that life and death, health and illness, the seasonal changes in the landscape, are an inextricably connected and often celebrated part of life.

detail: shaman staff

This staff is covered in talismans - a bevy of fertility sculptures.

Each talisman embodies the generative process.  Bottles contain infused oils created from herbs grown and/or harvested by the artist.

shaman staff

53 x 18 x 12 inches, vintage scythe, bottles filled with herbs and instructions for making a fertility tincture, yarn, up-cycled grocery bags (stuffing).

Symbolizing the Axis Mundi, this Shaman Staff, created for ceremonial purposes, is used to mark a transitional point between the conscious and unconscious or celestial pole between worlds. Traditionally feminine, the omphalos (umbilicus), is the center of the world.

Relating to birth, this staff also represents the physical site of transition before and after birth.

A vintage agricultural tool, the scythe, has lost its blade and is recontextualized as the base for this sculpture.

Agrarian culture, marked the onset of the Patriarchy, during the Neolithic period. Land was now "owned" and the idea of stockpiling/excess in preparation for seasonal shortages came into being. Women, as the producers of the labor force for harvesting, then needed to be controlled.

Found bottles are filled with herbs and instructions for making a fertility tincture. They are surrounded by crocheted yarn, converting them to dangling fertility sculptures and a powerful tool in ceremony.

Becoming Other 68 x 72 x 28 inches, Mannequin, Yarn, Up-Cycled plastic (stuffing), fake grass.

Pulling from experiences while training as a Shaman in the Irish tradition, this humanoid figure transforms and comingles with the landscape. In reference to the Anthropocene, all sculptures are stuffed with up-cycled plastic. This form sprouts organic masses that burrow into the ground.