MYTH AND METAPHOR

This photograph was taken around 1985. The cloak worn by the dancer was one of many fabric pieces made that year by artist Ann Burian and myself in Kalamazoo, MI. The Wellspring Dance Collective created a dance piece, "Weightedness Will Make this Fly," featuring many of the capes and robes we had made.

This piece by Ann was a tribute to the myth of a weaver, a mortal maid named Arachne, whose beautiful stitchery was envied by Athena, who turned her into a spider. Actually in an earlier age, a Spider or Spinner was the totem associated with Athena, who wove the web of fate, affecting human souls, who were powerless once caught in the goddess's web.

My work often returns to the same subject, depicting it in a new way, as with the above photo.  I superimposed a slide image of a spider web, wet with morning dew, over a slide of the figure wearing the cape. This was the next stage of metaphoric imagery after discovering overlaying exposures of negatives on photographic paper in a darkroom. I did not work with Photoshop until the 1990s.

Working with Ann on the series of capes was part of the evolution of my interest in mythic themes, and resulted eventually in many etchings in the Women's Heritage series, 1980s and 1990s.


Images and Writing are the Copyright  © of/ by Ruth Zachary