Artzine Featuring Art and Written Work by Artists
DANZA
La verdad está del lado de los oprimidos (Malcolm X)
una ave migratoria busca el humedal bajo sus astros
siempre ha viajado entre continentes
desde siglos sobre el ocre de los mapas
entre líneas desteñidas bajo los soles
los que nos ven y los extintos
quienes atestiguan las extensiones sin nombre
ni líneas punteadas
sólo arterias hídricas y nubes.
Violenta y sometida África americana
buscando la libertad
entre vudú, santerías y rebeliones.
written and illustrated by ©Enrique De Santiago
Narcisse Daphnée Dotou crafts symbolic appliqués representing Vodun gods and African diaspora spirits. Dotou’s images encourage introspection, offering a visual journey into one’s inner self. The viewer is asked to concentrate on the visuals and consider them thoughtfully, just as one would with a tarot card. Only then can the object’s grandeur gain a mystical and meaningful quality.
To make an appliqué like this, you need at least three weeks before doing it. We make the drawings on paper and then we start by cutting things out. Materials include sewing needles scissors cotton fabric of different colors fabric. Everything is done by hand except the border which was done by machine. My teacher was François Codjo Yemadje who is from Abomey, Benin.
Narcisse Daphnée Dotou
Narcisse Daphnée Dotou was born on October 31, 1991 in Benin and has lived in the Mono department for a long time. He is an artist trained in the traditional art of tapestry sewing. The motifs of his refined works cover a wide spectrum. These include the varied symbolism of the ancient kings of Benin, which is the former Danhomey, representations of the traditional gods of Benin voodoo, Haitian voodoo, Cuba, but also modern themes and works made especially at the request of customers. In addition, Narcisse is an excellent connoisseur of the Cotonou art scene. He is happy to advise you and act as an intermediary if you have any wishes or requests.
Interested in Dotou’s appliques you can contact him via Facebook at Narcisse Daphnée Dotou.
Sanite Belair, Haitian Héroïne of the Revolution of 1803 by François Cauvin 2021.
François Cauvin is an acclaimed Haitian artist based in Montreal. His iconic portrait of Toussaint Louverture with a guinea fowl forming his hat is the cover image of Sudhir Hazareesingh’s Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture. The famous portrait has now travelled far and wide as this book won the Wolfson Prize, the UK’s most prestigious history prize. Recently he has completed portraits of Haiti’s revolutionary women, including Sanite Belair and Marie-Jeanne Lamartinière. With funding from the Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund, Cauvin will speak with Rachel Douglas at UK museums and the Houses of Parliament on the topic “Visual Aftershocks of the Haitian Revolution.”
Nouvelle toile par François Cauvin ” Marie Jeanne Lamartinière “
Acrylique sur canevas. 2023.
Contrairement a ce que le noirisme duvalieriste nous a fait croire , Marie Jeanne Lamartiniere etait metisse ,d’un pere francais et d’une mere africaine. Demolition des mythes pour une nouvelle Haiti sans prejuges.
”Black Spartacus” by Sudhir Hazareesingh. Painting François Cauvin
“Ifá tells us that when he is enraged, Obaluaiye [Babalú Ayé] takes [his] special broom and spreads sesame seeds (yamoti) on the earth before him, then sweeps the seeds before him, in ever-widening circles. As the broom begins to touch the dust and the dust begins to rise, the seeds, like miniature pockmarks, ride the wind with their annihilating powers: the force of a smallpox epidemic is thereby unleashed.”
—Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, p. 63 (Vintage Books. New York, NY. 1984.)
Babalú gettin’ me up in the mornin’
I believe I’ll dust my broom
Babalú gettin’ me up in the mornin’
I believe I’ll dust my broom
I get to sweepin’ this sesame, baby
Babalú pox gon’ be ya doom
And you won’t get better—ya whole body covered in sores
No, you won’t get better—ya whole body be covered in sores
Be nothin’ but dogs a-lickin’ you, baby
Once these bristles start sweepin’ the floors
Lazy Pushin’ Daisy
I know that there’s a man
Who in Bethany stays
Erbody like to call him Lazy
Cause he lay still four days
Talkin’ bout that Lazy
I’d swear he pushin’ up daisy
I know that there’s a man
Who sleep like the dead
Only the power of the good lord
Rouse him out of his bed
Talkin’ bout that Lazy
I’d swear he pushin’ up daisy
I know a man name Lazy
Always got that bed breath
Got a twisted mouth so sour
Breathe out the smell of death
Talkin’ bout that Lazy
I’d swear he pushin’ up daisy
I know a man name Lazy
Who stink to his core
Body raw as his mouth
And dogs licking’ his sores
Talkin’ bout that Lazy
I’d swear he pushin’ up daisy
written by P.D. Newman
P.D. Newman is an independent researcher located in the southern US, specializing in the history of the use of entheogenic substances in religious rituals and initiatory rites. He is the author of the books, Alchemically Stoned: The Psychedelic Secret of Freemasonry, Angels in Vermilion: The Philosophers’ Stone from Dee to DMT, and the forthcoming title, Day Trips and Night Flights: Anabasis, Katabasis, and Entheogenic Ekstasis in Myth and Rite. The Secret Teachings of All Ages (TV Series documentary) 2023.
Theurgy: Theory and Practice: The Mysteries of the Ascent to the Divine by P.D. Newman, published by Inner Traditions, Bear & Company will be available on December 5, 2023
Feature photo: Cryptic God, la science des mystères by Mitchell Pluto. PD Newman collection
The Crossroads, a cosmogram that encourages foresight and safe travel. a study of the vèvè.
12inx12in acrylic, chalk paint and collage
Written by Mitchell Pluto© May, 28, 2021
In Milo Rigaud’s Secrets of Voodoo he describes the les lois ‘the laws’ as intermediaries between human beings and the cosmic source. These unseen constitutional agents are waves known as Loas who superintend the pattern of the world. During ritual and geometric drumming initiates tune into a loa and a transmission ‘mounts’ a recipient, known as ‘cheval’ which means horse. From the outside the person is possessed or entranced-from the word entrance. Similar to an artist being a cheval ridden by inspiration (in spirit). The psychic transit arrives, stays and expires while vertical lines are cross bounded by horizontal lines producing a square (or diamond) that channels (even generates) cosmic awareness into a personal experience.
The psychic map contained within the veve’s is a cross road of any place, it is also at the same time a quantum world of everywhere. I do not practice Voodoo or any religion in a traditional process. What I notice about active practitioners in Voodoo is trance states and a deep relationship with inspiration.
Excessive emphasis on power points and direction makes space magical and useful. Realistically on a mundane level, lines retain power in structure, a sentence of words or even numbers counting paced events on a clock. The Veves in voodoo reflect such effects as points and lines being the living representation of a spirit who is a geometric being. This is not unlike other cosmograms using geometry, including the Sri Yantra, Kolams and Navajo sand painting to mention a few.
Health, abundance, growth and love are all recognized universally as good and beneficial directions for the best outcomes. Positive end results, efficiency, a management of temporal lobe quakes and a thriving neural network are in accordance to the patterns of Loas. It cannot be argued maintaining this pattern is essential to balance and living well. Magic’s best purpose is healing and restoring the incomplete.
Points and lines (or particles and waves) will appear serpentine. The serpent is an expression of a time tense, a movement of a day and night in space. Only a focusing meditating point can open an omnivoyant eye in the center square (or center diamond). Veve’s along with the crafted tiles made by Islamic artisans have fixed these particles and waves in a suspended state for us to study the hidden qualities of an interior state. In my limited personal experience spirits look more like unfolding flowers without interruption, then they look like replicas of people.
I intentionally borrow from authentic beliefs. I mimetically blend ideas together. My intention is not to marginalize the value of traditional Voodoo
Mitchell Pluto