Grounding Ceremony documents the ceremonial release of my hair, which began with a sacred burial ritual. I begin by digging a hole into the Earth.  I ultimately enter that hole, where I cut each of my locs one by one. Each loc represents another level of release and cleansing, until all of my locs have been cut, marking the full release of the past. I was not the same person upon rising from the Earth that day, with my cut locs surrounding me, appearing like wings. 

Hair holds experiences, and a tree grows best when it has strong, solid roots. This ceremony released me from what I had been holding tightly to; and by rooting myself within the Earth for that process, I was able to transmute that energy so that I could emerge renewed. This video documents a very vulnerable moment of release and spiritual grounding. With the release of my hair, so many other things were also shed from my life. This work documents a true transition and rite-of-passage for me. 

My grandfather, also an interdisciplinary artist, has a deep impact on my art practice—my mother’s writing, my grandmother’s sewing and my great grandmother’s quilting have all found manifestation in my work. Each medium I use is its own language. I create narrative works that evolve over time. Often materials, processes or residual elements of one work—for example, ashes from a fire, hair, or soil—will find new life in another piece years later. For example, my hair, cut during my ritual performance “Grounding Ceremony” (2011) can be found sewn into “Genetic Memory”. 

I have always felt an intuitive connection to quilting & working with fibers. I'm drawn to the meditative process and the intertwining poetic qualities of memory, material and intergenerational histories. My Grandmother and I are currently collaborating on a series of quilts. 

In addition to quilting, I work with a combination of techniques, including sewing, bleaching and dyeing fabric. I combine self-portraits, existing family photographs, MRI brain scans of my Mother’s brain and portraits of family that I have taken with natural fabrics, such as mudcloth and cotton.

My Grandmother helped me to create my first 6ft by 7ft quilt commission for the Reginal F. Lewis Museum in 2007. I later learned that my Grandmother’s Mother, Josephine, had been a quilter and had created a few quilts in her lifetime. There are also influences in this work from the women of Gee’s bend. I have been deeply inspired by these women and their quilts. I believe I may have some ancestral connection there as well.

Through this work I explore family stories, even those with many missing pieces. Having never met my paternal father, many aspects of my lineage are a mystery to me; so call on the unknown as I explore my own inner journey in understanding impermanence, surrender, death, fluidity, and the infiniteness of the self as it connects to the interwoven fabric of the cosmos.

"Notes from the Ancestors: Tools for Edification" (2022)
Multi-sensory installation

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As an extension of the 8:46 video, the installation Notes from the Ancestors: Tools for Edification uses
various herbs (many significant in black herbalism, agriculture, and botany) to invoke both the practices
of herbalism and root work, as well as those who practiced these healing traditions throughout our
collective history.

Installed on the pulpit of the church, Notes from the Ancestors: Tools for Edification explores the
sacredness of care, the importance of family and community, and the sheer ingenuity, genius, and
resilience we have always had as Black people. We have kept one another alive through these traditions.
This installation uses texture, sound, smell, handwritten text, time-specific furnishings, and hanging
herbs to touch on the circular nature of time. These elements act as a conduit of communication
between thresholds and act as vehicles to transport the viewer through varying timelines into a
dimensional space of memory as it intersects with present reality.

"Breaking Open" 
Three-channel video projection on constructed vinyl screens, fabric & immersive sound.  Area 405, Baltimore, MD

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During my time as Resident Healing Artist for the New Day Campaign I created an installation entitled "Breaking Open". This installation was  an immersive sensory experience in which I built vinyl screens that hung from the the ceiling. On these screens, I projected a three-chanel video piece and covered the floor in a labrynth of fabric. The fabric in the space mirrored the over 100 yard spiral of fabric pictured in the video piece.  The sound in this installation fills the space with voices emerging from different areas of the room. "Intrepid I" and "Intrepid II" are performed at the center of this space within the labrynth of fabric, and amongst the three simultaneous projections. Sound for this space included a spoken piece "Sometimes We're Hardly Here" written, spoken & recorded for this installation by Natalie Stewart, as well as various personal stories recorded & spoken by 10 different women & men, surrounding issues of pain, mental health, wellness, self care, connection and human consciousness.


"If A Story Is Seed..."
Soil, 7ft X 7ft, The Eubie Blake Cultural Center, Baltimore, MD 

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“If a story is seed, then we are its soil.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
 
Dirt and soil are deeply connected to everything that nourishes us. Soil calls up connection to roots, growth, foundation, history, birth, death and the life cycle. I created a spiral of words in soil covering a 7ft square on the floor of the gallery space. This piece is deeply connected to impermanence, the idea of soil both having a memory and holding the memory & stories of the land (and those who once walked that land). The piece changed over time as the soil dried out during the duration of the exhibition. 

 

Unfold documents a metamorphic transition. I worked on Unfold, for a 10 year period.

Unfold began as a cast of my upper body, which I made into a pregnant form. From there, over the years, the piece would evolve based on life experiences, new understandings and revelations in dreams. During an emotionally tumultuous time in my life,  I had a dream that I cut my chest open and took my heart out. In the dream, I seached everywhere for someone who could fix it and put my heart safely back into my chest, but eventually found no one. Upon waking from this dream, I channeled that intensity into this piece, which was still a cast at the time. I mounted the cast to a large wooden panel and cut the chest open.

Over the years the piece evolved. I impregnated the cast with written intentions and words on fabric. I painted it and attached roots and bark. A few months after "Grounding Ceremony" I began to sew up the pregnant torso up with my newly cut locs. As a few more years passed, I opened the body cast again, revisiting and revising those intentions to more positive and life affirming ones. Then I sewed the torso back up using my locs. 

It’s final stages of development came as I built a large cocoon attached to a sculptural cast of my “pregnant” torso, sewn together by my hair. I then entered the cocooon, where I spent time in deep stillness. While in the cocoon I wrote words along the inside of its walls with india ink; the drips and painted strokes visibly appearing on the outside surface of this transluscent cocoon. After five hours of being inside of this piece, I (publicly) birthed myself from the cocoon I had created, hand dyed fabric trailing behind me like an umbilical cord. 

Not long after birthing myself from the cocoon, I decided to bury the placenta in my yard. The piece is still outside, as the weather & shifting seasons change it daily. Eventually it will fully return to the Earth. 

"The butterfly can help you see that exiting the cocoon suddenly opens a new door. The power of the butterfly lies in transformation and trust. Caterpillars must trust instinctual inclinations without doubt in order to reach the metamorphic stage. The caterpillar is almost completely dissolved by enzyme compounds within the chrysalis, before it can reform into an adult butterfly. Their whole body must be broken down to completely transform!" ~ "The Incredible Journey of the Butterflies"
 

"INTREPID 0" [Solo Performance] 
(My first performance of the INTREPID series)
“I release all attachments, I embrace detachment” Charcoal on 12’X12’ paper
Ritual performance
June 2014

“INTREPID I” [Solo Performance inside of “Breaking Open” installation]
“I give thanks” Charcoal on 9’X9’ paper
2:42min EXCERPT from 11:30min video documentation of ritual performance 

"INTREPID II" [Group Performance inside of “Breaking Open” installation]
Performed by: Phylicia Ghee, Cheryl Ashley, Catrina Caldwell, Karene McLaurin & Karla Benedict.
5:42min EXCERPT from 20:32 min video documentation of ritual performance
 ***Dedicated to Karla Benedict, with love & sisterhood*** 

--- Special Thank You to those who contributed to the Sound with Audio recordings of personal stories: Natalie Stewart, Amber Carroll Santibanez, Ashley Williams, Anna Davis, Caelyn Sommerville, Cee Cee Ghee (Grandmother), Ghee (Grandfather), Denitra Isler, Karen Ghee (Mother), Kriss Mincey, Missy Smith & Morgan Baker

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INTREPID is a ritual performance series in which I am using my body to move in a spiral formation while writing a series of repeated affirmations in charcoal on a 9 by 9' sheet of paper. This ritual uses movement and repetition to build new framework in the brain and initiate new neural connections. The vision for INTREPID came during a time when I was studying dance, neural plasticity, alchemy, and subatomic particle collisions. When subatomic particles collide, they form spirals. The spiral is also an important family symbol for my grandfather. It is found in the double helix of our DNA and can be found in nature, both molecularly and galactically.

My body, never leaving the paper, slowly erases the words of the affirmations I am writing, and they begin to cover my skin. In this way, I am stepping into my intentions in a very literal way. What I write is ultimately erased, although not completely. The beginning of the spiral of affirmations can still be read faintly. This performance challenges me not only to accept the impermanence of life but also to find and connect with that which is ever present, can never be erased, and never dies. Along with my affirmations, the 9 × 9' paper holds my fingerprints and the unique markings made by my body. The 9 × 9' paper holds a story of interconnectedness. A story of who I was and who I became. It is a portrait of myself, my ancestors, and the larger whole.

A fire in my apartment three years prior to the first performance of INTREPID opened my eyes to exploring charcoal as a tool and as a residue of fire. Charcoal not only carries with it the combustive, alchemical energy of fire into the work, but it also serves as a ritual tool and purifier of water (our bodies being up to 60% water). The affirmations I write in charcoal are transcribed onto my skin. My body, never leaving the paper, slowly erases the words of the affirmation and they begin to cover my skin. In this way I am stepping into my intentions in a very literal way. So, like a Buddhist sand mandala, INTREPID also challenges me to both accept the impermanence of life and to find that which is ever present.

The INTREPID II was my first time sharing ritual performance collaboratively in this way. We all influenced each other’s healing and spiritual evolution. My journey with these four amazing women has continually informed and influenced the way I’ve lived my life since and the sensitivity & compassion I have for those journeying beside me. We are all one, connected through the most pure and indestructible parts of ourselves.

In addition, one of the women; Karla Benedict, sadly passed away less than a month after we shared this ritual together. Needless to say, it was heartbreaking. A lot of grieving had to take place after this experience. I gave her 9X9' work to her family to keep. Later on I noticed that in her spiral she wrote repeatedly: "I am at peace, I am at peace, I am at peace, I am at peace…" all the way out to the edges of the paper.

“Every overgrown passion (including addiction and cravings), aggression, and signs of ignorance (including denial and the tendency to shut down or close out) is a seed for inner peace, compassion and openness…Our teacher is not separate from our own experience. My realization is that my fullest potential is here. This is the seed, and the full grown tree, this is where the work is done, on the ground level, this is where acceptance is stepped into… This place of pain, the charnel ground is the working basis for attaining enlightenment.”
~ Pema Chodron