Page 89 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing
P. 89
My materials are deeply private objects, personal matter “altared” and transformed by the
ceremony of a shared experience. I began collecting things from day-to-day life in 1989 when
I moved to a small log cabin North of Santa Fe. First it was soap and matches, then hair--
Life/Art gestures that translated into the realm of practice.
Every time I pick up a strand of hair, whether from my shoulder, a coat, a pillowcase or the
comb after combing out my newly-washed hair, I think of the final breath before death. Like a
Zen nun carving her tombstone, this practice helps me prepare for the reality and sacredness
of the last moment. I have conceptualized a performance for these last moments I call The
Last Performance Project. My goal for this work is to spin a thread made of my hair to be
used in my “last performance,” my funeral. Hair and thread, representing life force and human
destiny, set the stage for the living to transcend the pain of losing a body, while reaffirming the
connection of life to Spirit. I am not attached to what will happen during this “last
performance.” However, I do find this image beautiful and inspiring: a circle of “mOrners”
(mourners awakening to the Oneness of All Life) holding the spun thread of hair, each person
like the pearl of a special rosary celebrating the Oneness of All Things, alive or dead.
About the Author
Dominique Mazeaud is an artist whose ritual
performances and installations are prayers. Born in
France, she has lived in the United States since 1967
and in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1987. Her
passion is the Earth and her identity belongs to Spirit.
Material is matter... is Mother... is an excerpt from a
manuscript titled The Spiritual in Art: a heartist's
journey. The word heartist is the gift of her quest for
the meaning of the Spiritual in Art in our Time which
she has tried to answer since 1979. She feels so strongly about matter that she often calls the objects
of her life familiars. She can be reached at heartistdm@gmail.com.
