“Mythic Dreaming: Encounters with Love and Death”
Return exhibition in the Vine Arts Center at the Ivy Building
2637 27th Ave. S, Minneapolis 55406
November 11-December 9, 2023
2637 27th Ave. S, Minneapolis 55406
November 11-December 9, 2023
“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” —JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Humans yearn to love and be loved.
Humans also know they are fated to die.
Love and Death merge in the landscapes of myth and dream.
Humans also know they are fated to die.
Love and Death merge in the landscapes of myth and dream.
Mythic Art Circle, the mytho-poetic visionary art of Paul B. Rucker, Roger Williamson and Helga Hedgewalker, presents an exhibition of paintings, mixed media and digital work that invites the audience to venture into dreamscapes where love and death ignite.
Exhibit viewing hours: November 11-December 9, Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (except for Opening Night), and Wednesdays from 6 to 9 p.m.
Opening Night Event: Saturday, November 11, 7-10 p.m. Event will include snacks & beverages, vending by the artists and a short ritual theatre experience to open and bless this exhibition, featuring masked ritualists.
Special Mid-Exhibition Event: Wednesday, Nov. 29 (open hours 6-9 p.m.)
Local storyteller Steven Posch will present a performance of original and traditional stories and songs. Family friendly event. Performance will begin approximately at 7 p.m. There will be sets of stories with breaks in between and light refreshments.
Local storyteller Steven Posch will present a performance of original and traditional stories and songs. Family friendly event. Performance will begin approximately at 7 p.m. There will be sets of stories with breaks in between and light refreshments.
An ASL interpreter will be on hand for this performance, courtesy of the Vine Arts Center.
Steve has released a CD album of this work called Radio Paganistan and is a prolific blogger on the intersection of modern witch culture with many other topics, on Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth.
Closing Night Event: Saturday, December 9, 7–10 p.m.
Masked Ball open to all, inviting costumes interpreting all combinations of myth, dream, love and/or death!
Masked Ball open to all, inviting costumes interpreting all combinations of myth, dream, love and/or death!
“The Creative Fire: Illuminations of Being”
November 5-26, 2022
Debut exhibition in the ArtSpace Gallery at Jackson Flats
901 18 1⁄2 Avenue NE, Minneapolis 55418
Debut exhibition in the ArtSpace Gallery at Jackson Flats
901 18 1⁄2 Avenue NE, Minneapolis 55418
“I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head…”
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Helga Hedgewalker, Paul B. Rucker and Roger Williamson, original founding members of the MCPA (Minneapolis Collective of Pagan Artists) have transitioned together from MCPA to the Mythic Art Circle. Moving forward, we intend to present mythopoeic and visionary art and exhibitions with a wide range of influences and intentions. Our debut exhibition in this new mode will be a 3-person show exploring mythic and symbolic aspects of the element of Fire.
The idea of Fire encompasses vision, illumination, purification, primal energy, the burning away of what is undesired, and the spark of life itself. As a metaphorical force, fire appears not only literally in torches, candles and wildfire, but also as the inner fire of self-realization, and the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower”, the animating fire of green life.
Our exhibit will present several interpretations of the symbolism of fire, primarily as paintings of various sizes, with a few mixed media sculptures and assemblages also planned.
Exhibit viewing hours: Saturdays and Sundays (November 6-26) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Opening Night Event: Saturday, Nov. 5, 6–10 p.m. Event will include snacks & beverages, music by the Women’s Drum Center, back-patio fire (weather permitting), vending by the artists and more.
Closing Night Event: Saturday, Nov. 26, 6–10 p.m.
Special music performance by Jason Kesselring, Comets ov Cupid.
Special music performance by Jason Kesselring, Comets ov Cupid.
Vine Arts Center Presents-- Upcoming Art Exhibition:
“World in Flux: Visions & Voices of a Changing Planet”
Showcases Climate Change Impacts & Stories
“World in Flux: Visions & Voices of a Changing Planet”
Showcases Climate Change Impacts & Stories
Exhibition Dates: October 13 - November 3, 2018
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Featuring 32 Minnesota artists, Vine Arts Center is hosting an exhibition to inform, connect, and empower audiences on climate change impacts in a first-of-it’s-kind show, in partnership with Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy.
World in Flux: Visions & Voices of a Changing Planet showcases a juried collection of multimedia art, from the recorded sounds of melting glaciers to sculptures of wildfire-scorched trees.
Join Vine Arts Center, Climate Generation, and artists at the opening reception on October 13, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., featuring artists’ personal stories, the inspiration behind their work, interactive art, and refreshments.
Climate Generation will host two additional events at Vine Arts Center during World in Flux to connect audiences to climate change impacts and solutions. On October 25, attend “Climate Change & Art: Bringing Data to Life” from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. to dive into artistic representations of climate science, from melting glaciers to musical data compositions. Understand the basics at “Climate Change 101 & Climate Policy” discussion on November 3 from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. Registration is required at these free events due to limited capacity; reserve your seat at climategen.org/events
To see Helga's piece that is part of the "World in Flux" show, see the "Lord of the Forests" painting here.
Pagan artists present Third Offering at Paganicon
Rick de Yampert — March 11, 2018 — 1 Comment
MINNEAPOLIS – The Third Offering Gallery art exhibit at Paganicon takes its name from the belief that there are, as blogger Steven Posch is quoted as saying, “three traditional offerings of gratitude to the gods – water (for life), food (for sustenance), and beauty (to feed the soul).”
Helga Hedgewalker, a Gardnerian high priestess and Witch who founded the Third Offering art show in 2013 with Pagan and fellow professional artist Paul B. Rucker, wishes there were more awareness, if not gratitude, for Pagan creators of all sorts.
“It can be very tiresome how every TV show, radio podcast, magazine article . . . looks to writers/authors as the only thought-leaders worth acknowledging in the Pagan community, as if no other skills or talents have merit,” Hedgewalker said. “Throughout most of human history, culture has been transmitted through the arts: painting, music, fashion, dance, theatre, song, chanting, beautifully made tools, sumptuous foods and drink . . . .
“Good ritual partakes of all of those things— not what is written in books. Let me be clear, an author can describe a ritual in a book, but that is not ritual. True magic is a sensual experience, where the cerebral and rational must be left behind. If we are to truly build a Pagan culture, then we need less authors and more artists, musicians, cooks and dancers. We need less talking about magic and more doing!” (She later added that those comments “may sound like I’m crabby about books, but that’s really not true. I love books.”)
MINNEAPOLIS – The Third Offering Gallery art exhibit at Paganicon takes its name from the belief that there are, as blogger Steven Posch is quoted as saying, “three traditional offerings of gratitude to the gods – water (for life), food (for sustenance), and beauty (to feed the soul).”
Helga Hedgewalker, a Gardnerian high priestess and Witch who founded the Third Offering art show in 2013 with Pagan and fellow professional artist Paul B. Rucker, wishes there were more awareness, if not gratitude, for Pagan creators of all sorts.
“It can be very tiresome how every TV show, radio podcast, magazine article . . . looks to writers/authors as the only thought-leaders worth acknowledging in the Pagan community, as if no other skills or talents have merit,” Hedgewalker said. “Throughout most of human history, culture has been transmitted through the arts: painting, music, fashion, dance, theatre, song, chanting, beautifully made tools, sumptuous foods and drink . . . .
“Good ritual partakes of all of those things— not what is written in books. Let me be clear, an author can describe a ritual in a book, but that is not ritual. True magic is a sensual experience, where the cerebral and rational must be left behind. If we are to truly build a Pagan culture, then we need less authors and more artists, musicians, cooks and dancers. We need less talking about magic and more doing!” (She later added that those comments “may sound like I’m crabby about books, but that’s really not true. I love books.”)
Triptych of the Muse [Helga Hedgewalker].
Dozens of Pagan visual artists will be inducing Paganicon attendees into a sensual experience when Third Offering runs once again at the conference, which will take place March 16-18 in St. Louis Park just west of Minneapolis.
Both Rucker and Hedgewalker, not surprisingly, believe art is a magical act – for themselves during the process of creation and, they hope, when viewers engage their works and those of other “visionary artists” (as they and other such creators often refer to themselves).
Dozens of Pagan visual artists will be inducing Paganicon attendees into a sensual experience when Third Offering runs once again at the conference, which will take place March 16-18 in St. Louis Park just west of Minneapolis.
Both Rucker and Hedgewalker, not surprisingly, believe art is a magical act – for themselves during the process of creation and, they hope, when viewers engage their works and those of other “visionary artists” (as they and other such creators often refer to themselves).
The belief that art is magical may be as old as art itself: the most famous of those 14,000-year-old Paleolithic cave paintings in France, according to britannica.com, is “a small image, both painted and engraved, known as the horned god, or the sorcerer. It depicts a human with the features of several different animals . . . . Its significance is unknown, but it is usually interpreted as some kind of great spirit or master of the animals,” and it and other paintings in the cave “may reflect the practice of magical ceremonies in the chamber.”
“Creative flow is its own transcendent state,” said Rucker, who along with Hedgewalker planted the seeds of Third Gallery when they held a two-person show at Paganicon in 2012. Friends since 1992, the duo also co-founded the Minneapolis Collective of Pagan Artists.
“Making art can be a form of deep meditation,” Rucker continued. “Sometimes the art-making trance becomes like lucid dreaming while awake. Mircea Eliade, the scholar of religions, described the shaman’s journey as a ‘round.’ The shaman goes from ‘here,’ the ordinary world, to ‘there,’ the spirit world or the other world, in order to receive a teaching, a vision, have a profound experience of a heightened reality. To complete the round, the shaman must return with a medicine, a teaching, or something that will benefit the community. This requires a technique ‘of ecstasy’ as he called it. It’s not so hard to go to the other world — people can take drugs or have altered consciousness in a number of ways. What’s much harder is bringing something back that can be shared.”
Rucker’s website includes his account of a vivid dream he had as a child, of a white stag “that took me to a moonlit grove, wild and rambling, filled with . . . the names of the gods and goddesses of the world. To stand anywhere in that holy place was to feel each divine personality completely. All were there, every divinity the human world had ever known, and the stag of the moon leading me on and on . . . . Even then I knew my task was to bring that magic back to this world, somehow, through making images.”
His need to make art, Rucker told The Wild Hunt, is “my method of acquiring a ‘technique of ecstasy’ so that the bits of sacred fire from the visionary plane could be held in something that others could engage with here, in this world.”
Rucker was initiated at 18 into “an eclectic Pagan coven, and I’ve been exposed to many different kinds of ritual and Pagan/Polytheist/Old Craft/Thelemic — you name it — metaphysical subcultures, and brings that experience to bear in his art.
“What feeds my soul in this arena is ecstasy and transformative magic. Not ‘belief merchandise’ and rubrics and long, talky discussions about the validity of ‘traditions,’ or ‘circle church.’ The purpose of public ritual, in my opinion, is not to feel all safe and comfy in a circle, but to create a vessel that can heighten reality, that can bring the wild magic of the other world into this one, that can properly prepare the ground for a god or goddess to be really present. I also see this as one essential purpose of Pagan art. Not the only one, but an important one."
“Dionysus,” which was featured on the cover of the “Modern Primitives” issue of Green Egg in 1997
[Paul B. Rucker].
[Paul B. Rucker].
For Hedgewalker, who attended art school at the renowned Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and earned a bachelor’s degree in visual communications, “the art I do outside of my day job is absolutely a magical act for me.”
She recounted a spring equinox ritual in 2015: “The priestess had drawn down the goddess, and she turned to me and said, ‘I am the muse, and I demand you do a portrait of me for this new age.’ ‘Ummm, yes, my lady, but I do not know what you look like,’ I replied. ‘That does not concern me,’ she said very sternly. ‘You will do this or I will remove my many gifts and blessings from you until the end of your days.’ I was left quaking with fear, for I had no doubt that this had been a true geas laid upon me.”
For nine months Hedgewalker struggled and fretted to find inspiration. Even invoking her muse in ritual failed. “I was starting to despair,” she said. “What if she really did steal what was most precious to me for all my life? I questioned the essence of my very existence and purpose in life. Who am I if not your tool, oh muse?”
Inspiration finally came in a vision on New Year’s Day 2016, and Hedgewalker completed her “Triptych of the Muse” in time to exhibit it in July 2016 at a show presented by the Minneapolis Collective of Pagan Artists.
“The priestess who had originally drawn down the muse, back at the spring equinox in 2015, came to the opening,” Hedgewalker said. “She stood stock-still in front of the triptych for a long, long time. Then, with eyes that weren’t quite hers, she turned to me and said, ‘The lady is pleased.’ I barely made it out of the gallery before I collapsed in sobs, the waves of relief, exhaustion, euphoria, and sweet agony all mixing together. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.
“Usually I do my best work in a trance state, and when I can achieve that flow, I believe the gods make themselves known and I am merely a channel for them.”
The scene at Third Offering Gallery at Paganicon 2015 [Paul B. Rucker].
As for visionary art becoming a magical act for viewers — “Good gods, I hope so!,” said Hedgewalker, whose paintings were featured in Llewellyn’s 1997 astrological calendar. “I have several paintings in my house where deities in-dwell in them,” she said. “Their eyes follow me as I walk through the room. The art becomes gateways to their spiritual realm if the viewer is open to the experience. I don’t know how often it happens, but sometimes the synchronicity of someone needing an image of exactly what I’ve just finished is intense enough to leave me reeling. It is gratifying and very humbling every time.”
Hedgewalker’s upcoming book with Estelle Daniels, Color a Magick Spell, is subtitled “26 Picture Spells to Color and Manifest.” On Hedgewalker’s website, she says she hopes the book, due in May from Llewellyn, will help people “use art as a way to unlock their creative and magickal potential.”
Rucker mentions his interpretation of Melek Ta’us, the Peacock Angel, “a tutelary divinity of primary importance for the Yezidi of Syria, and for the Feri culture/current of witchcraft.” His image went viral on the internet, and responses to the painting led him to believe that people see it as “a true and authentic portal to the Peacock Angel.”
This year’s Third Offering show is themed “Fire and Ice” and will feature 55 pieces from 24 artists, said art show director Jason Neu. Paintings, fired clay, digital photos on metal and works in other media are included. Awards will be presented in the categories best representation of theme, guest of honor’s choice, people’s choice (chosen by ballot), and best in show. Many of the original works and smaller print versions will be available for sale. A meet-and-greet with the artists will be held at 6:30 p.m. on March 17.
As in past years, the show is juried, which means that a panel selects works to be exhibited from those submitted by artists. “The purpose of curation is not to exclude anyone,” Rucker said. “Third Offering is extremely inclusive, open to artists of every skill level and degree of professionalism.
“My main reason for a juried review process was to avoid the ‘rummage sale’ effect that I have often seen at science fiction cons, which often have ‘art shows.’ Because there is usually no curation whatsoever, people bring anything and everything, and thus the artwork presented does not integrate with itself. Curation, even on the most basic level, helps to cohere the show in a professional way.”
Rick de Yampert is a freelance writer and musician who has been on the Pagan path since the early 1990s. He plays sitar, Native American flutes, guitar, djembe (African hand drum), and other percussion at Pagan gatherings, art festivals, cafes, and yoga sessions throughout Central Florida. Previously he was a daily newspaper journalist, including 23 years as the arts and entertainment writer at The Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida, and 2½ years as the rock/pop/hip-hop writer at The Tennessean in Nashville. He lives in the Daytona area.
exhibition
This winter, the MCPA will honor the Divine Feminine in Her many forms, through a sacred fusion of art, theatre and song, through Yuletide and beyond.
Mother Night ("Modranicht"), the first of the twelve nights of Yule, marks a time betwixt the last of the old remaining year and the new year to come, a "non-year" time when the veil between the worlds grows thin and passable. The tradition of "Mother Night" venerates all ancestral Mothers (in Norse, the dísir-- "the goddesses" or "the ladies"). The power of the Mothers renews the Sun in the darkest time of year.
"Mother Night: the Goddess in Winter" weaves the themes of myth, Goddess reverence, and creative renewal in the winter season, with an invitation to our audience to celebrate and connect with their matriarchal lineage. Libations and hearth-warming food will be featured during opening and closing nights, and other special events are to be announced during the exhibition schedule. (See the Leaping Laughter Lodge calendar page or facebook.com/MPLSCPA for further details.)
"Let this be a time for gratitude for the talents received and a time to gift back that which haunts you from the grave. Meditate on this divine connection and heal it through love. Our Ancestry is the shadow that follows us throughout our lives." (MCPA artist Rmay Rivard)
July 8-29, 2016 I helped organize "Modern Pagans/Ancient Realms" a Minneapolis Collective of Pagan Artists group show at the Vine Arts Center.
From our curatorial statement: "Modern Pagans/Ancient Realms" presents a view of an ongoing revival of religions of pre-modern Europe, adapted to a 21st-century, urban Midwest environment. Contemporary Paganism embraces a range of religious, spiritual and magical traditions “self-consciously inspired” by pre-monotheistic belief systems and ancestral connections. This exhibition presents multiple expressions in various media which explore Midwestern Pagans’ connections with this living spiritual culture, examining a spectrum of responses to the challenges of a polytheistic present, using insights from the realms of the pagan past. Recovering and re-sourcing ancient ideas and folkways to provide alternative visions for the future, parallels movements that preserve ancient heirloom seeds in order to ensure that humans can continue to bring forth a genetically diverse harvest.
Here's a fantastic article: "Seeing Paganistan" by Stephanie Fox in MNartists.org (the state's premier website resource for everything arts-related).
And this is a thoughtful article by Dodie Graham McKay: "Minneapolis Art Show Explores Modern Paganism and Ancient Realms" in The Wild Hunt, an online Pagan News & Commentary Website
See more photos of the Vine Gallery Show here.
From our curatorial statement: "Modern Pagans/Ancient Realms" presents a view of an ongoing revival of religions of pre-modern Europe, adapted to a 21st-century, urban Midwest environment. Contemporary Paganism embraces a range of religious, spiritual and magical traditions “self-consciously inspired” by pre-monotheistic belief systems and ancestral connections. This exhibition presents multiple expressions in various media which explore Midwestern Pagans’ connections with this living spiritual culture, examining a spectrum of responses to the challenges of a polytheistic present, using insights from the realms of the pagan past. Recovering and re-sourcing ancient ideas and folkways to provide alternative visions for the future, parallels movements that preserve ancient heirloom seeds in order to ensure that humans can continue to bring forth a genetically diverse harvest.
Here's a fantastic article: "Seeing Paganistan" by Stephanie Fox in MNartists.org (the state's premier website resource for everything arts-related).
And this is a thoughtful article by Dodie Graham McKay: "Minneapolis Art Show Explores Modern Paganism and Ancient Realms" in The Wild Hunt, an online Pagan News & Commentary Website
See more photos of the Vine Gallery Show here.
The Minneapolis Collective of Pagan Artists debuted with
"Doorways to the Underworld" at Stevens Square Center for the Arts
(second floor), October 25-November 15, 2014.
"Doorways to the Underworld" at Stevens Square Center for the Arts
(second floor), October 25-November 15, 2014.
You can view the Flickr gallery of photos from the event here.
