More from Marginalized: My Interdiscplinary Art Installation

As promised, here are the images from the two largest installation pieces of my Marginalized show. The show opens May 4th in Lynchburg, Virginia. More about this two woman show, which includes my animal installations and Terri J. Miller's 4th world women portraits, can be found in my last post.

The first installation piece is called Animanity. It's about our disconnection from the snake and our learned, often irrational fear of them. 

Animanity Installation by Amanda Corlies Sandos

The central quote is, "A Snake Lurks in the Grass" from Virgil's Aenied. The other quotes are from Milton's Paradise Lost, The Holy Bible, The Tao Te Cheng, and The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The second installation piece is called Humanimality, and it consideres the chimp. I chose to depict a cute and furry critter that we are no less disconnected from. Though chimpanzees are the species we now know as our closest living relative on earth, we still marginalize them, abuse them, and destroy their homes.

Humanimality Installation by Amanda Corlies SandosThe quotes included here are Charles Darwin's "with all [his] exalted powers, Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin." This is from The Descent of Man. I also chose two non-hierarchical quotes, one from Jane Goodall, and one from Dian Fossey which serve to show chimps as beings separate from and distinct from us who are no less deserving of respect than our fellow humans.

The two installations together with Miller's portraits of many indigenous women of the world create a powerful look at marginalization. I hope those of you who live in the area will come out on First Friday in May at the Soul Cafe in Lynchburg.

Don't forget to pop over to The Ravens Crossing to catch up on Sharon & Alex's story today. Sharon is about to face her father and stand up for her beliefs. Sparks fly. Literally. Don't miss it.

Here are a couple more of the individual images from each of the installations above for your enjoyment.

Eyelash Viper by Amanda Corlies SandosReticulated Boa by Amanda Corlies SandosNurture by Amanda Corlies SandosThe Missing Link by Amanda Corlies Sandos

Most of these works are for sale as individual pieces, or an installation can be purchased in its entirety. Several of the images are already sold, however, and will be replaced with different images for future installations. Feel free to contact me here for more information.

Marginalized: An Interdisciplinary Art Installation

Rattlesnake, part of the Animanity installation, oil on board, by Amanda Corlies SandosWith less than two weeks to go, I am working a bit frantically to complete all of the little details for my next art installation, a show called Marginalized. I'm fairly excited about this installation because it's showing in a very conservative venue in my very conservative town, where I think it needs to be seen. It's not that I think these installations will change people's behaviors in some big epiphatic (if that's even a word) way, but they might make people stop and think, because, at the very least, they will certainly make many of them uncomfortable.

Marginalized includes my own work concerning our connections to and disconnections from animals along with my studio mate Terri J Miller's portraits of third and forth world women. The show will open on the first Friday in May at 6 PM in the Soul Cafe in Lynchburg, Virginia. It's an interdisciplinary show. The installations I am showing are mixed media combining multiple painted portraits of animals with quotes from various literary and historical texts about those animals. The quotes show how we learn from various sources a hierarchical language which serves to disconnect us from the idea of ourselves as animals. After all, Homo sapiens is simply another species like every other. But, we think of ourselves as something different, something better, something separate from the rest of the species on earth. Surely, we are not animals. Then, we often use that hierarchical thinking to marginalize others, and not just animals or indigenous people, but our very own community members, the person next door who is "different." This art installation is geared towards making people really look at how hierarchical thinking and language disconnects and distances us from others.

Terri and I will be including performance pieces in Marginalized, as well,  via our djembe drumming group, Nataraja. We will be performing ancient drumming rhythms from around the world, some of the earliest known forms of long distance communication between tribes. One of my favorite rhythms is one of the earliest known drumming chants called the "Mother Rhythm."It's simple and powerful and has a rich history of being played by and for women.

Anyway, when I say I'm interdisciplinary, I'm not just playing around, folks. If you are a bit of a science nerd, like me, you might say I'm a lumper and not a splitter. I put things together and look at how they interact, where they can combine, what happens when they do. I'm really serious about looking for the power that lies in the places between, where seemingly different and perhaps even opposing forces can come together in new and exciting ways.

In The Ravens Crossing news, a very different, but no less interdisciplinary project I'm involved with, we are a part of the Showers of Books Giveaway Hop for the next couple of days. You can hop on over today to read my Morgan & Holly story and enter to win a $15 Amazon Gift Certificate. All you have to do is leave a comment on one of the stories to be entered. Then, click on the showers icon and you will find a ton of other blogs with giveaways and tons of great authors to read.

Later this week, I'm hoping to have my installation photos ready to share. In the meantime, here are a couple more single images from the two large installations for your enjoyment.

You Can Dress Him Up, part of the Humanimality installation, oil on canvas, by Amanda Corlies SandosEmerald Boa, part of the Animanity installation, oil on canvas, by Amanda Corlies Sandos