This year, we're celebrating Samhain, the halfway point between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, with two Gorgons and a Lunar Priestess: Maria Molteni, Vin Caponigro, and Laura Campagna!
We talk about Samhain energy, the power of collaboration, art as spirituality, art as politics, public art, public ritual, rewriting prayers, heirloom magic, tearing down monuments, and how to conjure Medusa consciousness. Together we revisit and celebrate their 2023 Gateway to Infinity: An Anti-Monument project collaboration which manifested in a public artwork and ritual at Rose Kennedy Greenway in Downtown Boston (curated by Audrey Lopez), a zine and a short film.
Note: If you're in the Boston area, head over to the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Downtown Boston and visit the ground painting until the end of 2024.
Listen now, transcript below
Shout out to Ash Capachione who couldn't join us for this conversation, but was an integral collaborator on the Gateway to Infinity: An Anti-Monument project. Ash (they/them) is San Diego-based audio/visual artist, motion designer and filmmaker. Ash shot, edited, and composed the film, complete with original sound and digital animation. Find Ash on Instagram @Helixhand
Experimental video artwork featuring camera-work, editing, original sound and animation by multimedia artist Ash Capachione.
Maria Molteni (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, mystic, and educator, formally trained in painting, printmaking, and dance. Their hand-painted public groundworks- also called horizontal/ anti- monuments, shape-shifting labyrinths, and altars to the sky- provide spaces for somatic spellwork and collaboration with the living and dead.
Find Maria on Instagram @strega_maria @infinite_goddetc
and on their website www.mariamolteni.com
Laura Campagna (they/she) is a healer, artist, and educator who has been reading tarot and studying astrology since she was 13 years old. Her readings are intuitively crafted for each individual and informed by feminist interpretations of ancient mythology.
Check out Pagan Baby: A Kids Guide to the Cosmos - collaborative creation by Laura Campagna & Catherine Please.
Find Laura on Instagram @lauracampagna.astrology
and on their website www.lauracampagnaastrology.com
Vin Caponigro (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist who blends accessible and egalitarian concepts with ritual and performance to explore ideas of restriction and reproduction through writing, performance, and the creation of multiples.
Find Vin on Instagram @vincaponigro @snake_hair
and on their website www.vincaponigro.com
THE ARTWORK
Gateway to Infinity (An Anti-monument) is a large-scale painted ground work by Boston-based interdisciplinary artist Maria Molteni exploring site-specific histories and collective rebirth. The piece features a turning tri-limbed motif referencing symbols such as the Trinacria, Triskeles, and Triskelion that organize around a triple spiral. Varying iterations of the Holy Trinity, which the artist considers a “Gateway to Infinity,” reflect ancient, dynamic structures that expand dualist binaries. Located on Massachusett and Pawtucket land, between so-called “Christopher Columbus Park” and “Faneuil Hall,” this artwork seeks to call upon the receptive properties of an Anti-monument, positioned to pull energy toward the earth for composting. The work invites audiences to reflect upon and contend with the sites’ violent legacies and the choices made to freeze and commemorate them via conventional stone monuments. Molteni’s energetic installation aims to alchemize petrified trauma by centering moving, living bodies upon a communal platform, rather than atop towering pedestals.
THE ZINE
The 56 page zine, designed and risograph-printed by Snake Hair, includes writings that contextualize the work + collaborative ritual on mythological, historical, political and poetic terms. Essays by art historian Liz Andres, artist Maria Molteni, astrologer Laura Campagna, and artist Vin Caponigro.
READ THE ZINE - MEDUSA: MYTH, MEMORY,
(ANTI) MONUMENT
THE FILM
Triskele & The Monster’s Tools: A Solstice Invocation of Medusa Consciousness
On the Summer Solstice, Molteni and non-binary Italian American collaborators Vin Caponigro, Laura Campagna, Ash Capachione welcome you to this public ritual upon the newly finished painted artwork, a spiraling labyrinth representing non-dual, cyclical expansion. Three Gorgons (Molteni, Caponigro, and Ganci), united by a lunar Priestess (Campagna), journey to the center, an Anti-monument, to invoke the spirit of Medusa Consciousness and the emerging awareness that recent reflections on her myth have reawakened.
"Guests are invited to participate via printed paper talismans, a collective movement ritual, and personal family heirlooms (physical or conceptualized). Together we call upon the beaming sun, salty ocean, and three conjunction planetary bodies – the Moon, Venus, and Mars – to aid in a regenerative alchemical process. On this longest day, our inherited artifacts transform via frameworks of “The Master’s Tools” (an influential concept of Audre Lorde) into the “Monster’s Tools” (offered by thinkers such as Ece Canli). By the fire of the Summer Solstice, we forge new tools and paths for the future from the melted refuse of the Masters’ instrumentation. Centering reclaimed narratives of Monsterized, Othered beings, we wish to restore connections of the mind and heart, land and sea. Our aim is to welcome a fully embodied Medusa into the space left vacant by the heartless, beheaded Boston Columbus."
WATCH THE FILM - Triskele & The Monster’s Tools
READ MORE:
Project Page for Gateway to Infinity (an Anti-Monument)
Original Newsletter launched in “Columbus Day” 2023 with Letter of Resistance
Note: Mural assistants include Alicenne Reid, Nicole Hogarty, and Laura Ganci (who also performed as a Gorgon in the ritual!)
Check out our Missing Witches Samhain Carol and sing along!
Transcript
AMY: If you want to support the Missing Witches project, join the coven! Find out how at missingwitches. com, or buy our books New Moon Magic and Missing Witches. And check out our deck of oracles! The Missing Witches, Deck of Oracles.
AMY: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast. I'm Amy, and this year I'm celebrating Samhain, that halfway point between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, with two gorgons and a lunar priestess, Maria Monlteni, Vin Caponigro, and Laura Campagna. We're here together. I'm so excited to talk about Columbus Day, and Columbus Park, and Medusa Consciousness, and anti monuments. But first Let's take a second for y'all to introduce yourselves, or reintroduce yourselves, to the Missing Witches Coven. Laura, you're the only one who hasn't been on the pod before, so let's start with you.
AMY: Who are you today? What are you? Where are you going and where have you been?
LAURA: Yeah, thanks. Hi. It's really nice to be here. My name's Laura Ana and I grew up in Boston and I am joining you from that very place now. And I'm a writer and an astrologer and a tarot teacher and an energy healer. And I have the good fortune to collaborate with Vin and Maria on a very cool project last year.
LAURA: And it's really nice to be with you at this Samhain special.
AMY: Yes. Thank you so much. It's so great to meet you. I was so excited when I, when I got the zine. And of course I know Maria and I know Vin, and I was like, who is this Laura? It's fantastic to meet you. Vin, who are you today?
VIN: I'm Vin Caponegro. I'm an artist, an educator, and I run a small press that is currently located in so called Providence, Rhode Island, where I have the pleasure of printing a bunch of, like, radical and witchy zines and publications, including the one that we made to sort of summarize the project that we're going to talk about
AMY: today.
AMY: I was recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Salem and I was at HAUSwitch and I got a bunch of snake hair stuff when I was there, your your matches and stuff. I like, I haven't even lit one yet. It's been months cause I'm like saving them for the exact right moment. They do feel
VIN: very precious. Yeah.
VIN: Yeah. Yeah. Even for me, they feel very precious, and I have like hundreds of them in my house, you know?
AMY: Bria, who are you? Where you going? Where you been?
MARIA: Quickly, we are recording, correct? I just thought I'd check in.
AMY: Okay. Listeners, I'm going to leave that in instead of editing it out because I'll tell you, when, when Vin was on the show, we were talking and it was amazing and about 10 minutes in and I realized.
AMY: that I wasn't recording. The ever gracious Vin managed to like, you know, re grab that fire of improvisation and go back into the conversation with me. I promise you, Maria, there have been technical difficulties in the past, but Vin, again, has the distinction of being the only time that I just was like, hey, you know, I'm I don't need to do this important step.
AMY: So thank you, the ever conscientious Maria Maltini.
MARIA: I was not trying to drag you. I had the tech, the tech issues this time, so I couldn't remember if I'd hit the like, okay, you know, record. So anyway. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I'm Maria Maltini. I'm a visual artist. I try as a mystic and an educator and a designer.
MARIA: And I've been. More recently, writing a lot and my sort of intuitive practice incorporates tarot, sometimes astrology, dream work, somatic spellcraft I'm originally from Nashville, so called, you know, Nashville, Tennessee, and live in Boston, where I met Vin and Laura. Who I have also had the pleasure of collaborating with on this project and other projects over the years.
MARIA: So I'm really excited about that.
AMY: And let's also shout out Ash, who is traveling and couldn't be with us today. Also the day that we're recording is Ash's birthday. Yay! So happy birthday, Ash.
MARIA: Yeah.
AMY: And you, you have all
MARIA: Ash Capacchione.
AMY: Thank you. Capacchione.
MARIA: Yeah, Capacchione, who's like an amazing multimedia artist.
MARIA: filmmaker and sound sound artists and all, all sorts of things. Yeah.
AMY: And you all have like an Italian heritage in common, which is very beautiful and exciting, but. Again, I want to start, because it's Samhain, I want to start with Samhain. Like, Laura, do you have any particular rituals that you do at this time of year?
AMY: Or any, like, mind frames that you find yourself in? What does this Samhain time feel like for you?
LAURA: Yeah, thanks for asking. Samhain has always been my favorite holiday, even before, you know, when I was a little kid and I grew up in the Boston area, like you learn about Salem. So I was always like, Oh, I'm a witch.
LAURA: But I didn't know about kind of the pagan holidays. Exactly. But yeah, Halloween was always my favorite. And I feel like, you know, Being a Scorpio moon and rising, I really appreciate the beauty of Scorpio season and the way that death and that connection with the other side kind of teaches us how to live well in on earth and reminds us of the preciousness of life.
LAURA: And, you know, it's so and I think we're encouraged to kind of connect with our ancestors, both You know, biological and the chosen empowered activist ancestors. And I actually, we were talking just a little bit before created this book called Pagan Baby with a really amazing local queer artist Catherine Please, who wanted something to read to their kid about the pagan holidays.
LAURA: So we actually have a whole Samhain section that is designed for kids but also is good for adults as well. So Yeah, I think that creating an ancestor altar can be a very meaningful Samhain practice. And I used to live in the Bay area and the reclaiming tradition would do really big spiral dance celebrations with like recognizing, you know, the impact of us imperialism.
LAURA: So that also feels especially important this year with everything going on Palestine and Lebanon.
AMY: Then how do you feel about this notion of the veil thinning? Do you think that's, do you think that's a thing? And like, tell me about what you feel about the, the idea of a thinning veil.
VIN: You know, I do. I also think that, like, there are moments throughout the year where that happens, not just you know, in late October.
VIN: Although, like, I do understand the sort of, like, collective consciousness that happens around something like that, and it is sort of, like, this experience that is amplified during that time. But yeah, for sure. I mean, I actually curated a show in Chicago a bunch of years ago that was called Sending the Mail.
VIN: So, like, I'm, like, very invested in the, in the idea from, you know, a long time ago. It was three artists that were, like, working with sort of, like out of body and connecting to ancestors and you know, creating work around that. Not specifically tied to Halloween at all. It was, like, a, you know, in May or something.
VIN: But yeah.
AMY: And my last Samhain question is for Maria. What do you think about costuming as, like, identity play?
MARIA: You, like, actually read my mind. That's amazing. As I was sitting here thinking, what would I say about Samhain or Halloween? Yeah, I mean, also to the topic of spinning the veil, I think for me, I have often on Halloween dressed up, you know, dressed up as like some kind of ancestor I was channeling, like more so than like, I'm a, you know, sexy ping pong object.
MARIA: You know, I've been like, I'm like Harry Mary Magdalene, or, you know, and I'll often. I think it has been a cool opportunity to expand into my genders cause I kind of identify as. gender expansive as much as non binary. And I understand that costuming and Halloween can be like complex in gender expression.
MARIA: But for me, it, I think, has been an opportunity sometimes to like channel both different yeah, like, I don't know, lives or identities or genders through, through the deceased, like ancestors or mythological figures that I was interested in. And I've always found Halloween to be a cool opportunity to watch my very conservative father become a complete witch and installation artist.
MARIA: So I do appreciate like pop pop culture halloween for like pulling that out of some people who don't think they are.
AMY: Right. And this, this notion of decorating, right? Like, which you, you were calling installation art. And I mean, yes, yes, like public art. We're going to obviously talk a lot about public art, but the idea of decorating for a holiday being an extension of that.
AMY: I also want to say, because I forgot to mention before. Don't wait for me. Like, Vin, if you want to respond to something that Maria has said, or Laura, you want to respond to something that Vin has said, definitely don't wait for me to call on you. Just unmute yourself and jump in. And here we jump. So I conceived of bringing you all here today because I've been doing research for the podcast.
AMY: I was reading about the Mexican feminist art collective, Polvo de Galina Negra. I don't know if you're aware of them. Doesn't matter. Point is, their focus was on This is a quote from them. Transforming the visual world and thus altering reality. And there's another, there's a Margot Adler quote A feminist witchcraft coven once told me, to them, spiritual meant the power within oneself to create artistically and change one's life.
AMY: So I've been thinking so much and really stuck on this notion of art as transforming the visual world and thus altering reality. And also seeing art as magic, and art as ritual, and art as activism, and art as healing. So y'all gang seemed like the perfect grouping to talk to me about the transformative.
AMY: power of art. Let's start with Vin, the idea of art transforming the visual world and therefore transforming reality. Like, how art is like an expansive notion for you, but specifically transformation wise, personally, politically.
VIN: Yeah, I mean, I came to art sort of like as a thing that I didn't think would be my reality, right?
VIN: So like, First generation college student who was like in poli sci and then like art was something I always did on the side. And it took me a really long time to think about how those two things interact with each other and how sort of like, they were actually really ingrained. And I had a friend at one point who was a curator and he came in and he was like, why does your house look so different from your studio?
VIN: And I was like, I don't know. Cause I'm trying to do like big a art, right? Like I'm trying to like, have my paintings on the wall. And he was like, you know, like you're never going to be, you're like, you need to really embody your, like all of your practices in your art practice. And that was like a transformative thing for me to like, be like, okay, all the rituals that I'm doing, all of the, the sort of like ancestral work that I'm doing.
VIN: All of like the little altars I have all over my house, I can actually stop thinking about them as like private practice and start thinking about them. Okay. All of these things are really interconnected. And it was like a switch went off. And since then, like, I really haven't been able to separate the two at all.
VIN: Right. So like, they're all sort of interacting with each other constantly. And I don't even know if I could separate them out now, if I wanted to, because then my brain just like, doesn't think like that anymore. So Yeah, like the things I'm thinking about politically, the things I'm thinking about in my ancestral practices, my ritual practice, are showing up constantly in the work that I'm making and the things that I'm sharing with other artists and with collaborators, and it's just like this constant this constant back and forth.
MARIA: I love hearing that, Vin, because I don't, I know that story. I was
AMY: like, oh. Maria, do you want to speak specifically to the part about spiritual, meaning the power within oneself to create artistically and change one's life?
MARIA: It's like such a gift that you gave this framework because it's so hard to like define art or define magic, you know, people are always like, what is witchcraft?
MARIA: What is art? You know, and that those were such amazing definitions. Yeah, I think. When we might have talked about this a bit when I was on the podcast last time, but it's like, it took maybe a little similar to Vin. It took a lot of other people telling me that I was the witch to be like, okay, you know, Oh yeah.
MARIA: Like, you know, I was doing funny. I mean, I studied really traditional painting, like observational painting and undergrad, but then I was, you know, just trying on all sorts of different media, kind of meddling in my like, creepy, spooky basement. And oftentimes actually watching like weird movies as I was kind of manipulating some sort of material that felt really relevant to like the texture of the film or something.
MARIA: And you know, I ended up just doing these kind of strange rituals mostly based on athletics because, you know, I grew up grew up not really separating like those, those like athletic somatic practices from spiritual practices. And also not really being able to separate. My very Catholic upbringing from my creative life.
MARIA: And so, you know, kind of like Vin was talking about the early concept of what art was, and I thought to be an artist was similar. This is hilarious, but like similar as being a saint, which I think like speaks to sort of the like martyr in my, in my practice that I'm working to steward more towards abundance.
MARIA: Just thought like we learned about saints. And they were different from like, you know, from nuns or, you know, my, my sister wanted to be a nun. I wanted to be a saint because I thought like, you know, that a saint was someone who kind of like transcended I don't know. It's like this world in a lot of ways.
MARIA: Sacrificed for something that they believed in and kind of did something outside of all of the other systems or in spite of them. So, I feel like it took a long time for me to realize that I was also creating magic in my artwork to embrace that and then to start to do it more intentionally. And yeah, I feel like I could go on and on.
MARIA: So I'll just say that. Get it there. I mean,
VIN: and also to do it publicly. I think that was one of the scary, right, exactly. Me is like taking that, the things I was doing in the studio or the things I was doing behind closed doors and then doing them, like literally out in public or like, you know, putting them on YouTube for other people to see.
MARIA: Yeah, exactly. And I think also what VIN was saying about the mundane, like I, I, you know, I think that. I think that's been a core part of at least my art practice is like transferring or, or just shining the, the whatever magic within the mundane, just bringing it out and sort of vice versa, like, yeah, bringing the magic into the everyday yeah.
AMY: Laura, how do you see in your life a connection, if any, I'll leave the door open to infinite possibility between spirituality and creativity?
LAURA: That's such a yeah. Thank you for these questions. They're so good. Well, when I was younger, I was first drawn to visual art and I'm a Capricorn son. So the heavy inner critic was just like, you're not good enough.
LAURA: And I went towards writing partially because, you know, growing up as like a queer kid in the nineties, I was like, nobody is telling our stories. Like the power of representation. And yeah, it was so clear to me, but. Later when I developed more kind of like consistent magical practices and specifically as an astrologer, I started working with planetary magic where, you know, you're sorry, my, my black cat keeps running in and out.
LAURA: When you asked me who I am today, I wanted to say, I have a black cat that will disrupt this conversation. But Yeah, I had to when I started doing planetary magic and making talismans, I had to go back to a visual practice. That was really actually showed me how many blocks to my creativity. I had still to work through.
LAURA: And I feel like that's the amazing thing, both about magic and about art is that When I am able to say, you know, I desire this. I want this. I want to call this into being. I want to manifest this. I want to create this in the world. This is the, this is the world I want to live in. This is what I want it to look like.
LAURA: Then I encounter every part of me that has absorbed the messages of like, why that can't be true and why that isn't possible. And that transformation of that. That part of me has been necessary for the art to be created or the magic to be released, but that's almost so much more of the point for me now than like, you know, getting what I want or having something come out exactly.
LAURA: The way I hoped, and we'll probably get into this more, but I was thinking about it when we created the Medusa myth, memory, and anti monument zine, and actually writing it, like, was really hard because there was this encounter with really intense topics, but I actually felt by the time that I finished writing the piece that, like, something for me had really, like, shifted in my relationship to both the myth itself and yeah, the power contained within.
LAURA: So, yeah, I think that's, I think that magic and creativity and art. It's all the same thing. But we don't always call it that.
AMY: We keep sort of alluding to this big project that you all worked on. So let's open the floodgate. Maria. It's a film, it's a zine, as Laura mentioned, it was a ground painting in a public space, it was a performance art, ritual, so many things.
AMY: So, boil it down for us. It's
MARIA: so different. It's so funny, like, like trying to use it in applications and stuff, being like, It's so this. It's so that. It's so that. People are always like, are you applying as a filmmaker or a sculptor? And you're like, Get with the program.
MARIA: But I'm sorry. You just, you want to just kind of present the sort of the project. Yeah, so I mean, ultimately I paint a lot of artwork on the ground. I call them ground works. I kind of refer to them as altars to the sky, shape shifting labyrinths, or horror anti monuments, and a lot, they started out as basketball courts and became More like these circular kind of like, yeah, launch pads are like labyrinths.
MARIA: Basically. I kind of realized I was painting at a point and started to incorporate a lot of astrology also into thinking about the bird's eye view and also like the reflection to the sky. And Vin and I had been collaborating on all sorts of things for years, like smaller projects, larger projects.
MARIA: And also we were sort of in our own. Kind of activist group together and have been, you know, we're like protest buddies and and then, and then like Laura had, who then introduced me to had been my astrologer and, you know, we were becoming friends and talking more about astrology as I was incorporating, incorporating into so.
MARIA: When the Greenway in Boston approached me to do a public artwork, and they wanted it to be a groundwork, they gave me a options of a couple spots. One of them was in our, basically right on the edge of our historic kind of little Italy, and it's a very authentic place. little Italy in the United States called the North End neighborhood in Boston.
MARIA: And my piece was going to be right next to our formerly beheaded Christopher Columbus statue, which is beheaded in 2020 among other times. And so I also wrestled with like, do I want to get it? This, you know, this is like kind of a really intense space as Vin writes about in their essay on the zine, it's like right in between you know, the Christopher Columbus Park and Faneuil Hall, which was also like you know a channel of, of humic tra Looking and of enslaved people and I mean there's just so much trauma in that space so much history in that space and the city.
MARIA: But I decided to like take the challenge because funny enough I'd also received this like ancestral this heirloom, that was my great great, my great grandfathers, Christopher Columbus like Knights of Columbus. That had Christopher Columbus's head on the handle. And as soon as, and I received it the year that I got this commission, I was like, boy, do I want to lop the head off of this thing and put something else in place.
MARIA: Then, you know, Chris was beheaded and, and, you know, Vin had been, has been making, you know, work under the, under the title Snake Hair and, you know, about Medusa for years. So I was just like, this would be the perfect thing for Vin and I to work on together to kind of bring in like Medusa's head and Medusa consciousness.
MARIA: So I decided this would be the first like anti monument. I'd been thinking about all the other works as horizontal monuments. And that are just flat on the ground. People can walk all over them. It's not about a man on a pedestal frozen in stone. And so kind of started like, honestly, kind of like praying and meditating and like putting our heads together on it for a couple of years before it happened.
MARIA: And then we, we were both excited about some of the research, like, especially around mythology that Laura was posting on their Patreon that was like, really supporting some of our research and some of our interests. And it just, it was really cool. So, like, I invited Laura in and then I invited Ash in.
MARIA: Ash is an old friend and collaborator. We've been collaborating for many years as this kind of collective house. And And it was really cool because it was also like in deciding to do the triple spiral labyrinth, which kind of came out of pulling a lot of tarot cards for like a year. I was pulling cards out.
MARIA: Like, what does this project want to be? What does this project want to be? And I kept going to call, which of course is about collaboration also and like working together. And so but it was cool because like even our collaboration was starting to triangulate and like everyone involved is basically like a non binary Italian American queer witch.
MARIA: And it, it wasn't like I was trying to force, you know, but it, it was just like making itself. And so, yeah, so from there it just got a little bigger and we got an additional small but grant to do a program. So then like the, the sort of collaboration Vin and I were talking about could expand and That we got to make a zine with writing from all of us, contextualizing the Medusa myth and saying, like, why we're tearing down Columbus, why we want to put Medusa consciousness in the place, like, why it's time, how we feel about our ancestry in this whole, like, holiday, and then also make it into a film thanks to Ash's expertise.
MARIA: So That's most, that's most of the logistics.
AMY: And like you mentioned, Vin you, you named your, your printing business, Snakehair, and we talked about Gorgon's last time you were on the show, but I do want to just touch on some of y'all's essays from the zine. Then you wrote The Gorgon's Heads, because there were three in the story, right?
AMY: Like, we talk a lot about Medusa, but there were, there were three. Once used for protection, were co opted and altered in later years by Greek poets who transformed the story of Medusa into a cautionary tale of what happens when women exist outside of patriarchal ideas. And also, in which is in print.
AMY: This other zine of yours you quote the, the Malus Maleficarum, that when a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil. And I'm so excited about the like, expansion of this idea of Medusa consciousness that runs through the whole project. And Laura, get ready, because I have some quotes from you too, about this notion of Medusa consciousness, but like, tell me, like, how do I cultivate a Medusa consciousness?
AMY: Yeah, I mean,
VIN: that's such a big question. I think some of the When, when we sort of made the pivot of, oh, this is Medusa showing up, not as like an ancillary character, but as like maybe the main focus of what Maria was thinking about with the project. I was just like, obviously very excited because I have like a long standing love affair with Medusa as an archetype for like the reasons that, you know, we've used in the quote.
VIN: But thinking about one of the things I think about a lot and have gotten more into over the last couple of years is like I had a real love for mythology, specifically Greek mythology when I was younger, and then took a really big break from it. And similarly, like, was obsessed with certain saints when I was younger and then took a very big break from it.
VIN: And then sort of as an adult have been coming back to these stories and being like, why are these resonating with me? Like what, what is, what's calling me in these stories? And then thinking about the way that they're overlapping and the way that they're being used by people in power and how that changes the story over time, right?
VIN: So like going as far back as we can, finding sort of sources and then seeing how throughout time these. These figures are being used in very specific ways by the state, by, you know the patriarchy to to essentially tell stories that they want to tell and to, to change the sort of the, the, the, the change, the the sort of like actual you know, I don't know what I'm saying.
VIN: To change, they're like using, they're using them to change in whatever way that they find them useful, which is a complete, like, you know, disintegration of who they actually are as archetypes of characters. And that's something I wasn't thinking about when I'm like eight years old reading Greek mythology, right.
VIN: Or like reading whatever version of that. So that became really, really interesting to me and it's continued to become interesting to me as I'm sort of relearning a lot of these stories and a lot of the things that I've learned. Sort of put off to the side is like not important. It's like, oh Greeks, Greek society was so patriarchal You know, like as Italian American Romans are like, you know, like on this like high pedestal and they're also super fucked up you know, so like Revisiting some of the ways that you know, especially like underground cults are participating in these systems under like Roman rule and thinking about how we can learn from that and sort of, like, transform them further.
VIN: And in some ways, I kind of feel like transforming them is like this cyclical thing, right? Especially with someone like Medusa. We're thinking about, like, how she exists. In her inception, how she's changed and now how we're sort of trying to like acknowledge that transformation back.
AMY: Yeah, I have to point out that Laura's black cat has refused to be left out of this conversation and is now getting a good snuggle and pet from Laura.
AMY: What's your cat's name, Laura?
LAURA: Her name is Circe. A little bit unusual for her, but yeah.
AMY: Sometimes the magic is so powerful. Yeah. It's gathering your familiars.
AMY: But Laura, you you brought up Palestine, Lebanon earlier, obviously we're talking about Christopher Columbus and, you know, Maria, your work is so expansive. Of course, it's extremely beautiful and emotional and powerful viscerally, but it's also very political. And I would venture to say, like, you taking it public and especially in this park and where it's located and what that space means is an act of activism, right?
AMY: So, Laura, I want to know about all these connections, but specifically, like, how are is, can be political. Again, maybe going back to that, like transforming the visual world into the world that you want to live in.
LAURA: Yeah. Thank you. I think that, you know what Vin was talking about in terms of These archetypes are really old, and they have had their own evolution, right, throughout time.
LAURA: And, but yet there's been a consistent re emergence. And as an astrologer, looking at the patterns of when things resurface, and what people do with them, right? So, Similarly, as, you know, a young person who is like very inspired by the goddess Athena who is like this genderqueer goddess who was like the only one that, you know, got to be part of the Greco Roman pantheon as a woman, but was masculine and didn't marry and remained A virgin unto herself, but then had this really, you know, terrible part in the story of Medusa, who she both betrays and yet carries forward her magic, like the symbol of how powerful Medusa is as emblazoned on Athena's Aegeus and, and chest and you know, thinking about when we had Jupiter in Scorpio and the Me Too movement became you know, really big and emerged.
LAURA: And simultaneously, there was just all of this Medusa symbolism that really came to the surface. And when we think about trauma, and we think about the way things get frozen in time, and we think about The way that pain kind of lives in ourselves until it can be released and acknowledged and met.
LAURA: I think that part of what it felt like to me with this offering in particular and just the power of political art is that it can meet you in all of these places where our individual experiences of pain and what we've gone through. You know, it's collective, the personal is political, and what individuals are going through, we're, we're going through on a, on a systemic level, and also the way in which art can both represent that and transform that energy and then offer an alternative.
LAURA: vision for how things can be. So yeah, for me, this project in particular achieved all of that. And the fact that we did a public ritual during a time in which criticizing Columbus can be a very kind of can get a lot of backlash. And you know, we were barefoot in downtown Boston. And just kind of like, it was open to the public and anyone could show up.
LAURA: There felt like there was this incredible magic that was raised. And also this like real sense of like, we're not in control of this. We don't know how it's going to go. And so there was a little bit of like personal risk and danger that I, At least felt because my role is to engage with like every person as the high priestess and offer them some blood.
MARIA: And it was also kind of billed as like a pride. It was bring pride month, too. So, yeah, we were like, kind of like, it's gonna get rowdy like
VIN: it's gonna happen.
AMY: And how, how did Passers by react to what was happening before you answer. Listeners, like, pause the podcast, go to the show notes, watch the film, come back.
AMY: If you can, if not, like, as soon as you're able to. Because it's not just like a document of the of the piece. It really is like an art film unto itself. I can't stress enough, especially today at this halfway point between, you know, the equinox and the solstice, to take six minutes and just like go and exist in this space, even that being like a form of ritual that you can do today.
AMY: So once you're visually anchored in what they were doing in this space, like, what, how did people react to it?
MARIA: Well, it's funny because Vin, Vin, Vin and Lara Ganchi, also, Lara is, is amazing too, Lara Ganchi who who also helped paint the piece and then was also in the performance with us. The three of us, like, you know, almost in like a little trance state in the middle of the, you know, we were like walking the spiral the whole time and sort of doing these choreographed movements that, that we were very like locked in with one another.
MARIA: And Laura was sort of walking this, like, this kind of fight braid on fire that was kind of like the outer border. And I, and I really kind of thought of, so Laura was sort of like the priestess and we were like the Gorgons and we had these, like, Mirrors on top of our heads that were sort of braided around our heads with the holes like we had these kind of like braid beards that had bells on them.
MARIA: And we had these ancient Medusa coin images printed on the top. So it was like facing the sun on the on the solstice and being captured from above by the drone. And so I kind of thought of Laura, like, you know, you were kind of like the liaison to the public and also like our kind of protector.
MARIA: And you also. You know, took this special oil that that we had made that Vin had actually brought from Italy and like anointed us to kind of like wake up the consciousness or bring the Gorgons forward and then also went and It was this, it was this red oil that Ben can speak to, but it's like one drop of blood destroys one drop of blood, restores, and like doing that in each person's hands, which again, yeah, super intense and powerful so Laura might be able to speak more to like the experience of interacting with the public In that moment
LAURA: well, I will just say that I think that there's just a huge need for public ritual. I think that, you know, humans the decoration of the seasons and like holidays, like, to me, that's people's longing for, the way that we used to acknowledge that something's shifting, the energy is changing, we're in a different phase.
LAURA: And so I feel like Maria created this space where people could come and interact with this energy. And some people came intentionally, but some people were just passing through. And that kind of spontaneity, that synchronicity of, you know, whatever Medusa means for any individual or whatever. The concepts of heaven and earth and fire and water as transformative and healing that was an opportunity for people to consider what they wanted to heal and what they wanted to destroy within themselves or have transformed.
LAURA: And so I actually thought it went better than expected. So, yeah.
MARIA: Yeah. After we sort of did this three part ritual to awaken Medusa consciousness and There had been this prompt in the weeks prior for people to submit ancestral or like heirlooms, and that was very broad, what a heirloom could be, but this idea of submitting an heirloom that we were planning to, like, melt down and sort of reshape, and so, you know, my essay is kind of about, like, melting the tools of the master and, like, reshaping the tools of the monster, and So that was, it wasn't, I mean, people did to bring heirlooms to the physical thing if they wanted, but they'd already submitted them as photos that Vin had designed into sort of this, like, handout poster that actually had these cool glow in the dark Gorgon heads printed on it, so when you brought it home, you would, like and so that was kind of the prompt and they were invited to walk the spiral.
MARIA: But I think I have to just say, because it's like to keep it real and it's like also just hilarious, like someone brought this like massive weed pride flag. To our, to our ritual, and it was like kind of like in some ways stole the show. I mean by the time, by the time people actually started walking it was like there was this like huge like whipping flag that was like rainbow and had like weed leaves all over it and I remember asking, oh my god like can I get any footage of this piece without that giant weed flag or whatever but so that's actually one of the reasons that in the film, you don't see as
VIN: much of a community engagement piece. I totally forgot about the lewd flag, but I just erased it from my memory.
MARIA: Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up then.
VIN: I do think it really speaks to the sort of like trans like state that you were talking about.
VIN: Like we were on, like, we got there at like 10 o'clock in the morning, maybe, and we were there all day, just. Doing the ritual over and over again, fine tuning things, like, like recording things, like changing, making slight adjustments to everything, and then at like six o'clock or something we did the ritual with the public.
VIN: So like, by that time we were just like, we were so just like, I don't know, like in our heads and in our like bodies about like doing this walk and like getting our timing right and just like, Very much it felt like Laura, Laura Ganchi, Maria and I were just like very in tune with Laura Campani like walking around us, but it really did feel like an out of body sort of thing, we're like I didn't even, I remember looking up at one point and like, I, I think that like when I had started there were like, you know, spatterings of people and then just seeing like the entire, like the entirety of the thing surrounded by people and just being like, Oh my God, when did they get here, you know, and then being in the middle of it and having folks walk around us like as they were like entering into the piece and like experiencing it for themselves.
VIN: Like, it was it was like a very lovely experience. You know, like, when we were originally talking about it, like, there is always this, like, this nervousness when you're doing something in public. So the relief that comes when, like, there's no one, like, screaming shitty stuff at you, and there's no one, like, interrupting things.
VIN: Like, just, like, that breath that you can take when you're like, we did it, and it was It felt really good and it felt really powerful and we didn't have to deal with anyone's like, bigotry or bullshit or whatever. Like, it was, yeah, a lovely experience.
AMY: Do you think art, sort of like, in the same way as comedy, like, softens things enough that people can absorb them differently?
AMY: No.
VIN: I mean, maybe sometimes, but like, when I'm doing things out in public, like, I have people yelling all sorts of wild and inappropriate shit to me. Oh my god. Working in
MARIA: public space in general. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the process of actually, the thing was like, very different. Oh yeah,
VIN: I can't even imagine the painting.
VIN: Because at least when we're doing the ritual, it feels like it is a ritual, you know? But like, when you're just painting, anyone can come up and say anything to you.
MARIA: Yeah. But there, but there were like, I mean, there were a lot of just like, Ridiculous, ridiculous characters. I mean, we don't, you know, but like they would like literally film us doing labor.
MARIA: Like there was like a fence around it and they'd like put their cameras like over. And I'm like, no, I'm not, you know, I'm not like the, there's a street performer down the street, you know, that we're just doing work. But sometimes like these funny characters would show up that like, we'd just all look at each other and be like, Oh, That person fits the bill.
MARIA: Like where did they come out of? Like what cloud did they step off of? I don't know. Just yeah, some of the people kind of lingering and I'm always kind of paying to those little omens. I mean, I do a, I do an altar to, to every project and, and used a Medusa essence we made, which was different than the oil, but in like every morning would drip it in the center of the three spirals and then the center of the piece and sort of do a little bit of a blessing to protect the piece and.
MARIA: You know, but but like I forgot. Oh, but yeah, I just always pay attention to things that happen in particularly if they're ever like little animals or, you know, sometimes I'll come to a piece and there'll be like, A family is. In the center or some bird will come do a thing or so. Yeah, I'm always kind of paying attention to that too because they're the public as well.
LAURA: Yeah, and I felt like there was this engagement throughout the day of people who were who saw us and saw. Kind of this embodiment of the divine feminine. I mean, I had a street performer guy, like, come up to me and be like, what are you doing? What is this? And then like, be like, oh, you're the lunar priestess and kneel down.
LAURA: And I was like, I guess if you asked me what I wanted. From a ritual, it would be a random man venerating the divine feminine in public spontaneously, but yeah, I think that giving people the opportunity to engage with those archetypes in a public way is, is really important. Like, infusing magic into that area that really needs it.
MARIA: I also think the triple, the triple spiral is just like a really it's like a really immediate symbol for so many people. So many people respond to it, and so even if they don't, all the layers of the Medusa consciousness, I mean, there's a statement there, but, people were actively always responding and being like, I know what that is, you know, like, that's the Triskelion, that's the triple spiral.
VIN: Oh, I have one around my neck, or, you know, so. Sorry, go ahead.
AMY: I just want to return again and again to this notion of Medusa consciousness, and I want to read a couple things that Laura wrote. Laura, you wrote, Medusa consciousness initiates us back into snake wisdom and the wholeness of our beings. It champions those who have been silenced and encourages an embrace of that which has been locked in pain for too long, and also Medusa Consciousness contains both the poison and the antidote for the patriarchal pathology that we have all been living under for the past three thousand years.
AMY: Can you tell me specifically Medusa Consciousness or generally public political art and ritual are both, contain both the poison and the antidote.
LAURA: Yeah, thank you. I think that when I went to undergrad, I was obsessed with finding the origin of patriarchy because I had this idea that if we went back to the beginning, we could fix it.
LAURA: And you know, that takes you really pretty far back in human history to the original kind of yeah, the lunar, Snake cults that were worshiping the cycles, paying attention to the cycles and the power of transformation that the moon is representing through the waxing and waning every, you know, 29 and a half days and snakes as something that if For those of us that were brought up in Christian, I was raised Catholic.
LAURA: You know, this idea of women being responsible for the downfall of humanity and as initiating pain and death into the world. So, you know, the snake and women just, ruining it for everybody but actually the snake being a symbol of the goddess that you can follow as a metaphor for the way in which, you know, Christianity came and tried to stamp out these indigenous practices and also So there's a lot in terms of feminist interpretation of myths that kind of doesn't allow us to rest in this easy place of we were always just being abused and harmed, but that allows us to also kind of acknowledge resistance and tolerance.
LAURA: And I think that's really important. choice and autonomy that existed even under oppressive conditions. But in order to get there, you do have to, or a lot of folks have said, like, you have to enter the myth where you first met it or where it's been, you know, transmitted to us, which is an This place of patriarchy.
LAURA: So I think that for me looking at the Medusa myth it required me to like, really go into all the different parts. And the complexity is actually for me where the healing happens. Because that's part of it. That's beyond the binary, right? There isn't, there isn't just like good and evil. There is like the evolution of humanity and how rich it's always been in terms of people making magic, even when they were risking the most by doing it.
LAURA: So yeah, I think that's a bit about Medusa consciousness being the outlaw.
AMY: And there's a turn of phrase too that I, that y'all use, waking the monster's tools. So, Laura, I want to stick with you for a second and ask you, like, imagine our listeners sitting at home, they're hearing your voice, they want to know how they can, awaken the monster's tools, cultivate a Medusa consciousness as we go into this like dark part of the year.
AMY: Is there like a little bit of advice or a ritual or a mantra that you can advise us with which to go forth into this Medusa consciousness?
LAURA: Hmm. Well, waking the monster's tools was something that Maria really brought forth. So I'm, I'm excited to also hear what they have to say. But I think that for me, and this is something that, you know, Audre Lorde, the, the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.
LAURA: And this idea that like, if I am afraid and I don't act, I stay afraid. But if I am afraid and I do something, I have the right to act. opened up the possibility for, for change and transformation. And I think if folks want to connect with Medusa consciousness, I'm also interested in hearing what Vin has to say about this.
LAURA: Following that concept of snake wisdom in terms of like, what does my body need right now during the lunar time of the year when there is more night then day when we're dreaming more we're spending more time indoors and also like what are my dreams showing me and telling me both about like what I'm afraid of and what I'm trying not to be afraid of.
LAURA: I can't in my waking consciousness confront or deal with what are the parts of me that are desiring this kind of shedding and return to wholeness. So that would be, yeah. I mean, even just kind of like drawing snakes and meditating on them. I find that a few years ago when I took Medusa class and I would go walking in the wood, there would just be snakes everywhere.
LAURA: And that. Didn't like that doesn't happen to me now, but like meditating with the snake, can just be it can bring up a lot.
VIN: Yeah, I mean, I love everything that you've brought up about the snake So I don't need to go any further on that But i'll say that one of the things that helped has helped me a lot too is thinking about Like, and Laura, I think, was maybe the first person who introduced this idea to me, which like the idea of Medusa as like originally part of a triple goddess, but, you know, thinking about things not in terms of like, Oh, this, there's this only one way of doing things, but thinking about the sort of multiplicities of how we can attack certain problems or address certain issues.
VIN: So thinking about like Medusa, this like really important, powerful, transformative figure Transcribed You know, like is part of a whole, right? Like I'm also part of something bigger and I can sort of like input myself in the place where I'm most needed and then pull myself away and find another hole that I need to like, conceal.
VIN: Right. So it's not me doing everything all the time. It's me figuring out where I fit in and where my energy and my time and my, you know, like sometimes my money is most needed.
AMY: Do you have like a mantra that you return to, to like facilitate that way of thinking? I
VIN: mean, I'm in this the practice of like rewriting prayers and Marie and I talk a lot about that and has like a long practice of like doing that with the rosary and like sharing our prayers and doing the rosary together with our individual prayers.
VIN: And there are definitely times when like, I'm rewriting prayers. With Medusa in mind or like taking bits and pieces from other things and yeah, just like using them when they feel important and then changing them when they need to be changed again.
AMY: Yeah, I love this notion of like translating the stories that were imprinted on us.
MARIA: Yeah, and I think that like, yeah, we talked about that. Recently about the practice of rewriting prayers, because I guess it can be controversial for some, but I think it, it really parallels that idea of like melting the tools of the master into the tools of the monster, like, or even melting down your family heirlooms or have the like, elements and substance, but you're reshaping it.
MARIA: You're not throwing, you know, people, people get upset about tearing down monuments because they're like, well, you're taking away history. But, I mean, first of all, Whose histories did we preserve? Are the, you know, this isn't Rome either, like these Columbus statues are not like hundreds of years old, some of them were built in the 90s, whatever, you know, but also but also it's like, no, we're actually, you know, we're open, we're cracking this open, we're not leaving it, like, you know, sterile.
MARIA: And I think that as far as, I mean, All due respect to Athena and I, and I understand that she's complex and you know, I can even like summarize Athena, right. But I, I like feel like I'm in a phase of my life at least of like really confronting her and what some of what she stands to me because I think she is this like incredible figure who also Yes.
MARIA: Is connected to Medusa. Like comes from Medusa, comes through Mi Matos or maus but kind of has. Managed to hold her place of power through the tools of the master, you know what I mean, through like playing by the boys rules or whatever. And so, you know, and, and like, so, well, it's interesting because when we started this project, we kind of, we all talked about our own separate relationships to Athena and Medina.
MARIA: And even like from childhood, because then Athena was like your mascot.
VIN: Well, I went to Bryn Mawr, which is an all girls school outside of Philadelphia. And we have a tradition where there's a giant Athena statue in one of the great halls. And you go and you leave her presents when you need good grades, or like when you need like a safe room of stone upon you.
MARIA: Yeah. And like, and like, I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and we have an exact replica of the Parthenon from a World's Fair from like the 1800s, and it's so, it's been restored. And before I ever knew where Greece was on a map, we were like, hanging out at the Parthenon for birthday parties and stuff. And there's a giant gold Athena inside of the, of the Parthenon that my like childhood acquaintance's dad sculpted.
MARIA: And so you know, I actually like, I ended up showing a film at the Nashville Film Festival recently, not the Medusa one, which is funny. It was a different one, but I went to the, the kickoff party at the Parthenon and I brought my Medusa zine and I like, went up to Athena and I was like, free Medusa, free Valentine, like, like was being like, film boys were like, who is this person?
MARIA: But But you know, I, I really feel like I want to like challenge, challenge Athena and like invite her to like remember like where she came from, you know what I mean? And like release the tools of the master and like free the tools of the monster cause I, that's also, you know, like the partially the challenge of like white feminism.
MARIA: Like I kind of think like that, you know, I think Athena obviously represents way more than that, but I also think she really kind of like holds that that kind of like hegemony.
AMY: And you quote Sonya Renee Taylor, We have been cosmically invited to build new tools for the future. I want to know from everyone, like, what are, what are the new tools for the future that the cosmos is inviting us to, to build?
AMY: What might that look like? I mean, it's interesting because, Vin You're. work has so much to do with the printing press, which was obviously like a huge, you know, had its pros and cons. But but, you know, like in, in the, in the age of computers, we think of as kind of antiquated, but you've like brought this new life to this old technology.
AMY: So is that part of it is building the new cosmic tools also like, Rebuilding the stuff that we've decided is antiquated. I mean,
VIN: I actually talk a lot with my students who, you know I'm teaching in the university. So they're, you know, anywhere from like 18 to grad students who are like in their mid 20s.
VIN: And the sort of pushback from technology and this, the, the desire to distance themselves in like the age of like the overabundance of social media and our 24 hour day. Like. Just like screen time. And I have to remind them that like there are still people in marginalized communities who are using like print media because it's safer and less traceable than you know, what we're doing on our phones all day.
VIN: Like if you're Googling something, the FBI knows about it, right? But like if you're printing something and you're not connected to the internet, it's not, you know, if you're doing something by hand, you can get it into the hands of hundreds, if not thousands of other people. In a very different, in a more anonymous way, if necessary.
VIN: And there are also stories that will never get told if we rely on the systems that are already in place. Right? So, like, there's a, there's a potential there and the internet does help with that. But, like you're saying, there's safety concerns. If you're someone from a marginalized community who is sharing something, you know, that could put you in danger, you can't do it on Instagram or on TikTok or whatever without, like, that actual very real danger that you're putting yourself in.
LAURA: I think it's interesting if I can just jump in in terms of when you asked about the question of the veil being thin because, you know, we astrologically we've been in this transit of Neptune going through Pisces, which has historically been the veil over the last decade and Previous to that, it was in the late 1840s, and Marie and I just did a different project about that for the Boston Art Review, but You know, right now, Saturn is in Pisces, and like, actually bringing those dreams into reality, like, Saturn is about making things real, dedicating ourselves, putting in the hard work and effort to you Create something tangible and, you know, Pisces is that cosmic consciousness that we are all connected to the oneness and the dream beyond The dream, the, you know, what, what's beyond the veil, right?
LAURA: The unmanifest and also before even the manifest. So I feel like the problems of earth are not going to be solved by the thinking on earth. It's going to be solved by each of us. It's channeling what wants to, and I think it's desperately trying to come through right now. And we've only got another like year or so of this energy before both Saturn and Neptune move into Aries and we have a really different vibe going on.
LAURA: So I think that, yeah, this I, I hope that everyone who has been awakened by this energy over the past 13 years starts to really follow those dreams and, and make them manifest in the world. And I see people doing that in living differently and creating art and choosing to prioritize their spiritual practices or make them public and dedicating their life in different ways.
LAURA: But that to me kind of, It feels like even though it's ephemeral, it also feels really urgent that we actually like prioritize that as a practice and as a priority.
MARIA: Partially it's like ideas of like a witch or a monster are can be shaped by, you know, people outside of it that fear it and, you know, point to someone and call them a witch or a monster or they can, or we can own them and reclaim them and call.
MARIA: Make those rules ourself, use those tools ourself. And so I think, you know, that's part of it. And, you know, especially in my essay, I unpack a lot of like, who's, who's the monster now, who's going to be the next monster, like who, you know, who do we trade out, like those of us who are not as white or whatever, you know, privileged or, or, or good, or you know, that are the monster of the moment, if we're like, kind of given like a token or a pass.
MARIA: To, to whiteness or privilege somehow, or to like the, the status quo or mainstream. And we take that when it becomes the monster and like talking about these cycles. Also like, sometimes the monsters tools are also just reclaiming your own like tools and power because like Athena who has Medusa, like on her, on her chest and on her body.
MARIA: It's like, she's, she's still using the tools of the monster. She just kind of has them in captivity or whatever. So I, I feel like there was something I was going to say about that, that related directly to what you were saying, Laura. But then I totally like went down some kind of
VIN: thing in my mind and lost it.
AMY: Well, let me, let me tie some things together by tying you all together. I, I, Oh, you thought of it. I remember. I'm sorry.
MARIA: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Cause you were talking about Saturn and Neptune. That a big part of us like calling in the juice of consciousness was to reconnect the head and the heart and like the mind and the body.
MARIA: So that's like a major, major component. That we need for moving into the future.
AMY: So my final broad question, and, and feel free to keep it as tight as you like, is tell me about how important it is to collaborate, to work with other people, to sort of reject this, like, isolationist myth of the artist.
VIN: I, I think it's super important, you know, like, I, there's this essay that Mark Fisher wrote that's called Against Competition. And it's like specifically art practices and how we're in the scarcity mindset and in the capitalist patriarchy that we're living under. Like there's so much ingrained in us, especially in like a place as individualistic as the so called United States, that we're just like constantly supposed to be competing with each other for resources, for grants.
VIN: And there's some reality to that, just like in the world that we live in. But we can make the sort of active choice to not participate in our creative practices in that way. Right? And not to say that collaboration is always easy. I feel like we I feel so blessed to have been part of this collaboration because it was Like, not without hiccups, but it was really fruitful and really generative, and the things that we were able to create were just, like, really impactful for me personally and I think, like, the project in general and collaboration is not always that way.
VIN: You know, like, collaboration can sometimes be really, really hard and really painful in a lot of ways, especially when artists with egos are working together and, you know, things don't turn out exactly how you think You know, like when people aren't sort of responsible or like, you're not just like clicking in the same way that, but that should not be a deterrent to future collaborations, you know, so I'm glad that the bad collaborations I've had are like the difficult ones, the unfruitful ones have been helpful.
VIN: Stop me from that desire. And I think the desire for collaboration in art and in life, you know, and like mutual aid practices and like whatever we're doing it should be more at the forefront. We, we have to like constantly fight against the societal status quo to participate in things like that actively.
VIN: Our active minds have to be like, I am not an individual. I need to be part of this group.
LAURA: Some Aquarius wisdom right there. I will just say that. Maria, in their infinite Libra wisdom has taught me so much about collaboration. And as a Capricorn, I would just much rather do things my way and by myself.
LAURA: And I have had the privilege of watching someone who understands people's individual talents and then bring them together to create something that we could never do on our own. Like, Vin's like skill and mastery with graphic design and layout and like creating the scene, creating the posters, like everything, like ashes, filming, everything was just so top notch in this way that I was like, Oh wow, if we actually looked at society and looked at people for what they were good at and valued them and gave them the opportunity to express that, how beautiful would that be?
LAURA: So, you know, We're at the end of Libra season, and we are finishing up this Libra Aries Eclipse Cycle, so I just wanted to kind of acknowledge that that was a really kind of healing thing for me and that, yeah, the kind of the hiccups that Vin mentioned, like That's the growth that's there and we can collectively figure that out if we're dedicated to it and we see the value in it.
MARIA: Yeah, I mean, it's been so healing for me to get that feedback from you, Laura. Like, I, it just, I almost, you know, say that because collaboration was so hard and can be so heartbreaking. And, and, and also like, I mean, I've had really, really painful collaborations at times that still produced work. An amazing, that I just will not let die just because people are still in whatever places of growth they need to be in, you know, and I think the work is its own being, you know, that I just, I, I very much respect and honor the people I work with and the work itself and I think just knowing how power we're doing together is just makes it really worth like pushing through and Figuring out egos or whatever.
MARIA: And, and I, but I do agree that this, this was one of the most like I don't, I mean, easy is just not even like a, like, I just think we were all so equipped and like I was working with. Everyone who was geniuses in their field, we were all experienced to a degree with collaboration. And we also do have this like really deep spiritual and political bond, you know, not only because we're like Italian American, but that as well was really like just special.
MARIA: And you know, I'm kind of like blessed and cursed with this, with this sort of. Just desire to collaborate because it just motivates me. I mean, I have a thousand ideas all the time, you know, like North node and Gemini, like just It's like the, it's, it's other people and what I imagined that we could do together and how much bigger I think what we could do together could be that like motivates me to actually do the thing.
MARIA: And I also find that I develop these like crushes on other people's practices or I get really into other people's practices and I'm just like, I'd so much rather just be like, do you want to do your thing with me rather than grapple with, I don't know, I think a lot of people also like. I don't know.
MARIA: It's hard these days with social media. Like, we're inspired by each other, so how can we, like, credit each other for our work and let people speak on the platform that they, that they created, you know, and, and really speak to their own expertise and labor. And so I find when I feel resonance with some, with something someone's doing, I would prefer to, like, invite them in to work on it.
MARIA: Rather than, I don't know, like take it from them or, or what, you know, I mean, I would never take it from them, but it's just, sometimes there's not always budget to support that. So I do also really appreciate working with like, you know, anti capitalist people who do know their worth. But, so I just think we did a really good job of negotiating expectations and what we were willing to put into this for the sake of the magic and what we could get out of it in terms of resources.
MARIA: And you just sometimes don't always have, like, collaborated materials, I guess, with some of that stuff, or just value systems.
AMY: And the collaboration allowed the project to bear so much fruit, like, I think I went down the list earlier, but listeners, again, like, a zine, a public ritual, a ground painting, a film there's so many components to this piece, but also beautifully intersecting with each other and expanding on each other.
AMY: It really is like exactly what collaboration can and should be in the world. It's beautiful. It's personal, it's political, it's magical it's activism, it's healing, it, it, it really is just like a beautiful emblem of what we can do with art. And so that's maybe the Message that I would love for listeners to take into again, this sort of dark half of the year is what you can do with art and what you can do with collaboration is vast and infinite.
AMY: And I'm so grateful for the three of you coming to collaborate on this podcast episode with me today. But I don't want to let you go before you can tell our listeners how they can best support you. Vin, if you want to talk about snake hair, Laura, we already talked about pagan baby, but I would love to hear a couple more sentences about pagan baby.
AMY: So maybe let's start with you, drop your social handles, and also A couple sentences about Pagan Baby. I just like saying Pagan Baby. I wish it was my band name so I could just say it all
LAURA: the
AMY: time. Pagan Baby.
LAURA: Thank you. Yeah Pagan Baby is currently only available for digital download. If there are, is anyone listening who would like to printed.
LAURA: We've come close with a couple of publishing houses, but it hasn't happened yet. But yeah, we're still looking for the right kind of home for it.
AMY: So let me just interject to say if you are in any way affiliated with a publishing house that you think would be interested in Pagan Baby, listeners, what an amazing way to collaborate with Laura.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah. And that's at paganbaby. club, I think. And then if anyone is interested in my work, I publish bi monthly newsletters that are available through my Patreon. And Also on my website, laura kya astrology.com. I publish more frequent you know, kind of astro weather, mundane horoscopes on Instagram and I guess Facebook Laura Kaan, astrology.
LAURA: And yeah, Maria and I have a new article coming out on, spiritualism and Shaker Era of Manifestations and Neptune and Pisces in the Boston Art Review that I'm really excited about at the end of the month, so yeah. If folks are interested in a reading or healing, anything like that, get in touch.
AMY: And of course, all these links will be in the show notes. Listeners, you're gonna get hit with a bunch more links now.
VIN: So yeah I have like an individual artistic practice you know, that's based in performance and multiples and ritual. I have a website that you can follow, which is my name, vinhappenegro.
VIN: com. And then I also run Snake Hair, which is a small anti capitalist independent print house where I'm actually right now designing for our third open call, Occult Studies, burn it down. Which I hopefully will be printing in the very near future. I'm also working on finalizing a studio space here in Providence, where I will be hopefully, like, hosting more workshops, and inviting folks in to, like, come and print with me.
VIN: I did my first snake hair residency this past year, so inviting an artist in to come and use the press, but it was in my house. So hopefully in 2025 out in the, you know, the real world where people can come and take workshops with me. And all of that stuff is at snakehair. com.
AMY: And I recently got Maria's latest newsletter, and it was just like, here's the billion things that I'm working on.
AMY: So, Maria, tell us about the highlights of what's coming up for you and where people can find you and support you and all that.
MARIA: Oh, thanks. Well, yeah, I have, like, my Instagram strega underscore Maria, Molpini. Underscore studio. And I also have like a Patreon and a a very new sub stack called Jones Arc.
MARIA: Which will be very much about collaboration. And I have an online store. Transparently I do have a lot of things coming up, but I have been not having such an easy financial year, it's, I'm actually having a pretty time, partially, I think. From maybe like the speaking out against genocide and such.
MARIA: So I definitely, if anyone wants to take a look for my online store or, you know, yeah, I, I will accept any form of support. I also do tarot reading and have like a couple of lectures coming up about the shaker era of manifestations, one through the Victor Wind Museum in London which is only like six dollars, but, but I think it will be really exciting if it, if it fills up.
MARIA: And then there's a free one actually through Folk Art Museum as part of their shaker gift drawings exhibit. So I do a lot of work on the shakers and their channeling. They're like kind of spirit channeling. But like Vin and I both sell the Medusa zine. We sell different edition versions. Like Vin has one that has the Really beautiful, like Gorgon foil overlays.
MARIA: And I have one that comes with three of the Gorgon coin stickers. So you can purchase the zine, but honestly, one of the biggest ways I can feel supported is just share the work, please, because I am not institutionally supported and I like really do a lot of my own like promotion and I'm like pretty tenacious and just trying to get stuff out there.
MARIA: And I feel like. There are these, like, massive, for example, initiatives throughout the country right now called, like, Un Monument, Re Monument, or something, and it's, like, sometimes I feel like I'm, like, shouting from the mountaintop, like, we've been doing this stuff, you know, or, like, we have a really important piece of this puzzle that, like, needs recognition, and, you know, also hearing people talk about Columbus Day, and I'm just, like, so proud of the zine, and I'm just, like, That's like, it's
VIN: all there, you know?
MARIA: So I just really appreciate people sharing the work so that it doesn't go, so that like, queer, radical fems don't continue to go like, unnoticed and sit in the shadows. Yep. Promotional TED Talk.
AMY: That's, that's the, the, the problem with being a visionary, right, is that people are going to come up five years behind you, and you're going to be like, I've been doing, we've been talking about this, we've been doing this for years.
AMY: It's the price of being a visionary. So I'm afraid, probably for all of you, this will always be the case for your entire lives. Is that, you know, the people coming up behind you. Are finally going to start getting it five years later or it's going to come into a universal consciousness like five years later or whatever, but you are each and all visionaries and that that is the price you pay for her forward thinking consciousness.
AMY: Thank you all so much again listeners. The film will be. on the website. Please share it wildly. Get a copy of Pagan Baby. Download it. Support. Stay care. I personally have one of Maria's basketball jerseys and I love it so much that I sent one to Risa. And Mary Saw in and blessed fucking be.
VIN: Thank you so
MARIA: much. This
VIN: was
MARIA: amazing. And I also, I meant to say too, it's like, I, this is, this is like what the project has been needing. It's like a platform for us to come together outside of only the ritual and like, talk about it. Get it out. So like, I'm just so grateful to you.
AMY: Yeah, and especially to have a little bit of the space of the passage of time to really, you know, like when you were saying, like, when you're when you're in it, you're in it and you don't even necessarily notice what's going around, what's going on around you.
AMY: But now you've all had a bit of time to like, sit in the work and be like, yeah, actually, that, that works. That was fucking rad as fuck. Totally. I'm so proud of all of you. I hope that I was demonstrative enough of how much each piece of the work is so meaningful and so beautiful and so valuable. I just love it.
AMY: I just love it.
MARIA: Thank you for all your enthusiasm. Yeah, and one thing I forgot to mention is that actually it's, we might end up doing, well, we will do some kind of a spell because they are going to be blasting the mural off soon, which is bonkers and they haven't told us when I was trying to get them.
MARIA: They might do it this month by the 31st, literally, or they might do it spring. So, right now, people can still go see the work in downtown Boston, and we'll post an update about, like, kind of how we plan to close it, and, yeah, when it'll be gone.
AMY: Yeah, I'll put a note in the show notes as well, listeners, like, you can actually go still see this if you're in the Boston area.
AMY: Maybe you are unadvisedly going to Salem in the month of October. If you are, that's amazing, I wish you luck. Pass through Boston and check this out too. Thank you again so much. Two Gorgons and a Lunar Priestess. What an amazing way to, to celebrate Solwin. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
MARIA: I love it. And yeah, and happy birthday Ashk about joining!
MARIA: Happy
LAURA: solo return.
AMY: Yeah, as leaves and empires fall around me, fall around me, fall around, fall around me as leaves and empires
AMY: around me
AMY: around.
AMY: around me. I give thanks. I give thanks for the spirit in all things. For the magic that it brings, For the seasons change and So must I Saw in its night As leaves and empires fall around me, fall around, fall around me, fall around, fall around me as. Leaves and empires Fall around me Fall around me Fall around me I give thanks I give thanks For the spirit in all things, For the magic that it brings, For the seasons change and so must I.
AMY: Samhain is nigh, Samhain is nigh, Samhain is nigh.
Okay. Okay.
