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Introduction
Introduction
In my American Identity series, we warmly welcome everyone, bringing together people from different cultural backgrounds. Our goal is to not only share the beauty of each of our individual cultures but to also bring ideas from each cultures to make something new and unique. The profound beauty of the United States of America is its vast wealth of cultural diversity, which if properly harnessed, can lead to breathtaking and new innovations. That is why I think it is important to hold multicultural events that break down silos and create pathways for all cultures to collaborate together which will eventually lead to prosperity, empathy and love. In the past, I have held community events on multicultural festivals and cooking. Now, we create a space to explore this through fashion.
The Portal of Transformation
The Portal of Transformation
This bag was designed with Ingrid, a multicultural Bostonian with roots from Peru, and a Pura Vida love for life that her Costa Rica and Greek family inspired in her life journey. As she embraces the true facets of her self, she has found comfort and connection with the Kali deity of India, who represents the balance of the courageous and bold qualities of the protector, infused with profound compassion for all beings of the earth from humans to trees to ants. She has always been drawn to spirals which to her symbolizes Pachamama (Mother Earth), universal connection, and energy. Both the goddesses of Kali and Pachamama are infused together into this hand-embroidered (material) bag, custom created by Nellie Theroux and Vivekanand Pandey Vimal.
The black cloth represents uncertainty, one of the core aspects of the universe. We used the three-eye motif from Vivekanand's Indian culture to represent spiritual transformation and being able to see deep philosophical beauty and truth. The two 'human' eyes had a sky blue cornea to represent the sky and dark blue pupils to represent the oceans. The third eye was red, like a fire, to represent transformation. All of the spirals represented Ingrid's culture and the idea of being a portal into the spiritual world. There are 3 spirals because 3 is a sacred number. The spiral on the bottom also represents Kali's tongue.
Design Process
Design Process
Nellie and I began by having a discussion with Ingrid, one of my spirit-soul friends. In this discussion, we explored resonante themes that deeply moved all of our destinies, hearts and spirits. Some of these themes included self-transformation, connection with the Earth, and a universal source of energy that unites all of us.
Our discussions also examined a recent event I had done on Kali where the community explored how to transform negative energy into positive creative energy. Kali, among others, is often represented by three eyes. The third eye, for me, represents divine vision which can see a depth of philosophical beauty and truth that the other two eyes cannot see. Additionally, the the third eye, for me, represents spiritual transformation. Below you can see how I have used the three eye motif in my clothing artwork.
Our multicultural discussion not only explored Hindu/Tantric symbolism but also spiral based symbols which represented Ingrid's culture. Below is an image of an ancient petroglyh. I found a fascinating website that provides an academic look into spiral symbolism which appears across many different cultures from different parts of the world. The paper (on the website) proposes that shamans made these spirals to represent a spiritual portal into the spiritual world, often accessed by entering into deep states of trance, sometimes induced by psychedelics. Here is a passage:
"It is important to note that a common shamanic theme is death and rebirth. Initiation is death from one state and rebirth into another passing through a transitional spiral vortex or tunnel. The full fledged shaman also has the sensation of passing through a spiral vortex during shamanic flight, but in this case it is interpreted as the entrance to the spirit world. Spiraling downward the shaman enters the underworld returning to the womb of the Earth Mother for a new birth. Spiraling upward the shaman enters the sky world. The hypothesis of this paper is that the transitional stage may, at times, be represented in the form of a spiral in some Colombian rock art."
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