Making holders that could gather and divert the flow of melted wax. I’m wondering if these can be draw tools of some kind, marks that record.
Made this form while thinking about Rovelli’s diagrams of time structures:
A good friend of mine was leaving Singapore. It seemed as good a time as any to make more of the wick-candles.
This time they turned out wilder for some reason, they felt more animate to me. I have been thinking a lot about the magic readings. They resonated with me in a way I never expected.
I’ve been thinking about those ideas, I just didn’t know they were could be called magic.
Here are a few lines from What Lenin Teaches Us About Witchcraft,
by Oxana Timofeeva and Reclaiming Animism, by Isabelle Stengers.
What makes slight-of-hand magic possible is “the way the sense themselves have, of throwing themselves beyond what is immediately given, in order to make tentative contact with the other sides of things that we do not sense directly”.
Our millieu entices us to feel that we bear the high responsibility to determine what “really” exists and what does not. It is a milieu that is ruled by the power of judgmental critique.
Scientists are infected, of course, as are all those who accept their authority to decide what objectively exists. But also infected might be those who would claim to be animists, if they affirm that rocks “really” have souls or intentions, like humans.
A poisoned milieu must be reclaimed. So must many of our words, those that – like ‘animism’ and ‘magic’ – carry with them the power to take us hostage: do you “really” believe in…?
The main source of her magic is her firm belief in herself, which she perhaps acquires at precisely her worst moments of loss and catastrophe.
Neo-pagan witches call their own craft “magic”: naming it so, they say, is itself an act of magic, since the discomfort it creates helps us notice the smoke in our nostrils.
4 replies on “holders”
Xinwei!
I love the idea of subverting the wax in these channels. It is such a so slow and gentle corruption of materials (including gravity). I love that your brain could find this in what seems so obvious to me now! Your brain!
I’m also really enjoying the twisty wick candles – they’re so lovely – almost language-y but not in that obvious kinda way.
Do you know the work of this artist?https://www.documenta14.de/en/artists/13502/otobong-nkanga
I don’t know this artist! I like the way she talks about time and mineral elements. And the repeating refrain about the geological scale of time! The flowing of melted candles thing came to me first because I’ve always been transfixed by caves! Those limestone caves with huge drippings. I used to stand in the middle of them and just imagine it empty, the first few drips of water echoing before anything rose from the ground or fell from above.
Thank you for coming by and looking at these candles with me!
Hi Xinwei,
I really enjoyed your explorations on wax, time, and thinking about a device that could become a drawing tool.
This is a bit of a reach, but the way you were describing your thoughts reminded me of Olafur Eliasson’s work, perhaps you already know this:
https://olafureliasson.net/archive/artwork/WEK108624/untitled-black-boat-drawing
Him and his father used their boat as a drawing tool, allowing the sea, through time, create these experiments. He speaks of a “cosmic attribute” which I think resonates with your work.
Excited to see more!
Hello! Thank you for dropping by and leaving this reference. I love the image of the boat drawing. The “cosmic attribute” that he talks about is indeed something that I find very compelling.