XV.
The roman numeral X = 10. Ten is the number of fulfillment & plentitude: manifestation. It’s important for me that the symbolism of any particular glyph transcends culture and time. In the tarot, the number 10 is the number of the wheel of fortune. It is a symbol of completion, the closing of a circle, the positive and negative experiences of life. In Pythagoras’ theory 10 is a sacred symbol representing the universe depicted as 10 dots in the shape of an equilateral triangle called a Tetractys. In Hinduism, the 10th state, Avastha, is the point at which self-consciousness is shed & unity with the Divine within is attained.
XVI.
3-12-22 was the date of our shoot in Montauk & 8 old Montauk Highway was the location...it’s a storied place, Warhol bought the 30-acre ocean front compound, known as “Eothen,” in 1972 (my birth year!) I feel so strongly about working as a “collective” with other creatives. Any Warhol fostered a creative community like no other. For years, the artist used the compound as a city retreat, the antidote to The Factory lifestyle. It was a retreat for artists, musicians and writers. Warhol’s “collective” included people such as Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, writer Truman Capote, Keith Haring, and Basquiat.
I designed the “Abacus” chain with a “Forever and Always a Pair” pendant with the intention to make serious stones feel more effortless, more every day. The way the oval links run free flowing over the chain and can be pushed back and forth remind me of an abacus, there is something satisfying about the way they move but I also think that the presence of the heavy gold links feels unexpected and collected.
XIX.
The butterfly is a symbol of the soul. In the 2nd century AD, a beautiful allegory was written by the Roman author Apuleius depicting Psyche, Goddess of the Soul, as a butterfly. The word “psyche” eventually came to mean in Greek both soul & butterfly interchangeably.
Joseph Campbell spoke of the Myth of Psyche, represented as a butterfly, as the human search for what is true, meaningful and important to our souls: “an experience of being alive, so that our life experience would resonate within our innermost being and reality, so we actually feel the rapture of being alive”.
The butterfly is a symbol of an inextinguishable soul; is always drawn to light. The light of the Soul is inextinguishable. They are also a symbol of birth, and a life well lived, because a soul is all of those things-passes through all of those stages and that is what a butterfly represents. The very definition of metamorphosis is rooted in “meta” which means between, after...a metaphor of living between the seen and the unseen: between reality, fantasy and memory.