When Art Meets Divination
Feminist artist collective, Hilma’s Ghost host a spell jar workshop inspired by historical women artists and mystics at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum inspired by their new project, Enchantments: Bottled Devotionals of Divine Feminine Spirits.
Selecting elements of gold links color theory and magic.
What is a spell jar? Hilma’s Ghost explains.
Artist Danielle Tegeder starts the class with a tarot reading to set the tone of the workshop.
What happens when you combine magic with your art practice? It’s something that many artists have actually done historically, particularly women. The feminist artist collective Hilma’s Ghost know this all too well. The duo consists of Sharmistha Ray and Danielle Tegeder, two artists and magical practitioners who have set out to educate others about the misconceptions of witchcraft and demonstrate how it can be a powerful tool for artists.
The history of magic in art sprawls across time. Think of the statues and temples dedicated to the gods or paintings like Botecelli’s Birth of Venus. Hilma’s Ghost is named after the artist Hilma af Klint, a Swedish painter and medium born in 1862. She used her connection with the spiritual realm in her art, channeling messages from beyond to create paintings with a mysterious and otherworldly aura.
There is a deep history of artists inspired by the occult.
Hilma’s Ghost created an apothecary box dedicated to these magical women artists in a new project in collaboration with The Aldrich Contemporary Museum titled, “Enchantments: Bottled Devotionals of Divine Feminine Spirits.”
Hilma’s Ghost has created a box of spell jars dedicated to various women mystics, artists, and goddesses in history.
The Aldrich explains, “For the Aldrich Box series Hilma’s Ghost created an apothecary box imbued with magick. The box contains 12 bottles. Within these bottles lie the eternal power of the divine feminine. Each bottle is designed as a spell jar and is dedicated to a deity, saint, or an artist and includes a collection of ephemera. Each of these items carry associations with the female personages they represent. When paired with the activations –an invocation, a ritual, and an incantation –the attributes associated with each start to manifest.”
On the occasion of this project, Hilma’s Ghost led an artist talk and workshop in The Aldrich’s studio. There, they gave a detailed presentation outlining the history of female artists, their connections to spiritualism, and the erasure of the latter fact due to its taboo nature. Following the talk, they launched into a spell jar workshop, inviting their curious participants to take magic into their own hands.
The participants ranged from absolute beginners to practicing witches. They were invited to write out an intention for their jar and instructed to create a sigil from the letters, then placing their manifestation into the jar. A sigil is a symbol used in witchcraft that is imbued with power. Tegeder and Ray then invited people to select ingredients and objects that would provide their jar with the tools to carry out their spell. They reviewed color psychology as well as the cultural, natural, and spiritual meanings of each item laid out in front of the class.
Participants decide their manifestations for their jars.
Dried roses, cloves, snakeskin, and more give serve various purposes depending a spell’s intention.
The artists explained that certain ingredients like roses and honey mixed with items like red and pink glitter might assist one with a love spell. Alligator teeth, aventurine, cinnamon, and green glitter may be some ingredients to incorporate if a person is seeking money or success. When everyone was satisfied with their spell jar’s contents, they sealed their jars and sent their delighted and mystified students home with a candle to charge their jars and manifest their spells.
How does one choose what goes into a spell jar?
In this unique, magical workshop, Hilma’s Ghost not only shed light on the historical and modern day connections between art and magic but also empowered participants to embrace their own creative enchantments.
Reflection
While crafting this photo essay, I primarily photographed while I was at work, because it is already part of my job. We had a new project opening that was this interactive apothecary box kicking off with a workshop led by the artists who created the box, Hilma’s Ghost.
I took photos of the box playing around with different shots like close-up details and various compositions until I found a shot that I thought illustrated the box fittingly. At the workshop, I prepared by speaking with the artists beforehand and taking some preliminary shots of the materials for the class. Throughout the duration of the two-hour session, I took in the history and context of why they made this box and what informs their work. In turn, I was able to decide what I wanted to highlight and communicate in my photo essay.
Damir Sagolj from Reuters explains seven photojournalism tips: anticipate, research, reach out, prioritize, practice, interact, and be invisible. I practice a lot of these as a photographer, especially while shooting people and events like this workshop. I tried to remind myself to be patient throughout the week and not rush. I took my time where I could, and talked to the artists and curators for information that could help with the story. While shooting people in action, it takes a great deal of patience to get the right shot. Remembering to anticipate, practice, and prioritize were what I thought about most.
In interacting with the artists and participants at the workshop, I was delighted to see that a concept we had been studying was a part of the lesson, color theory. The artists spoke in-depth about the use of color and what they mean, and even pulled up and image of Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions. I tried to find images that incorporated the use of color in the jars people made in order to bring that message across, as it highlights the connection between art and magic.
Of course, as this workshop dealt with a lot of controversial and also personal topics to the participants, I tried to be respectful. It can sometimes be pretty difficult to photograph people doing things. People become aware of a camera once the shutter clicks, so being mindful of people's boundaries and space were important to me. Fortunately, it seemed like people did not mind the presence of the camera.The best moments were those when people were busy having fun and exploring the different materials they could potentially use in their jars. Here, there was a good amount of movement and action. I was able to get shots of people creating their jars and exploring.
In my composition, I tried to incorporate some Gestalt Principles, like similarity. While photographing the box, I loosely created three groups: the jars, the box, and the instructional booklet. Remembering the principle of proximity, I arranged some of the bottles to stand next to the box with one laying across, to suggest they were a part of the box, and were taken out.
Overall, this process was both informative and exciting to carry out. Photography is one of my favorite parts of my day-to-day work, and I enjoyed thinking more creatively about my process throughout.
Reference:
Reuters. (2023). 7 Photojournalism Tips by Reuters Photographer Damir Sagolj. Vimeo. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/48815231.
Shurbaji, E. (2014, December 17). Photo narratives. Medium. https://medium.com/learning-journalism-tech/photo-narratives-d77b812f99dd
Simplicity, symmetry and more: Gestalt theory and the design ... - CANVA. (n.d.). https://www.canva.com/learn/gestalt-theory/