The Spell: The Magic of Words and Imagery


The Spell is an upcoming show in the Visual Arts Gallery at Santa Fe Community College, showcasing work by Maternal Mitochondria. I’m really excited to showing at my alma mater and with so many local artists whom I admire!

Opens: Thursday, October 6th, from 4-6pm

Closes: Thursday, December 8th

ecoartspace Fundraising Event and Pop-Up

Fundraiser & Pop-Up Exhibition
Miriam Sagan’s Poetry Yard, Santa Fe

Ana MacArthur, Ahni Rocheleau, Chrissie Orr, Frances Whitehead, Toni Gentilli, Hilary Lorenz

FUNDRAISER EVENT September 30, 4:30-6:30pm

POP-UP EXHIBITION October 1 & 2, 11-5pm (free)

RSVP info@ecoartspace.org

ecoartspace invites you to experience site-works by six ecoartspace artists for our three day pop-up exhibition at member Miriam Sagan‘s private poetry yard in Santa Fe. We will be serving drinks and appetizers, and there will be seating to listen to the artists talk about their work.

Suggested donation is $50-$100 per person

Donations will go toward the printing of two ecoartspace publications; a second edition of our annual exhibition book for 2021, Embodied Forest; and our upcoming 2022, Earthkeepers Handbook.

RSVP for fundraiser by September 28

Can’t make it? Not in New Mexico, please consider making a donation here

Desiccation: Dormancy: Deluge

Miriam Sagan will be opening The Poetry Yard this year, an outside space where sculpture and poetry can be fully experienced. Here is a sneak peak at the first sculpture to go up- a permanent feature of the yard. Made entirely of recycled materials, this land art project helps direct rainfall by incorporating a dry pond. The sculpture’s relationship with the land may change over time- will the wood rot when exposed to water? Or will it remain an ever present reminder of fire and drought? As our climate changes, the sculpture may reflect that change on a local level. Along with the ambiguity and anxiety of climate change, “Desiccation: Dormancy: Deluge” brings up issues of human consumption and how different organisms feed. The sculpture takes inspiration from saprophytic fungi (mushrooms that consume dead wood) and the twin processes of parasitic and symbiotic growth. The plastic and dairy industries are an ambiguous two-edged sword- using unsustainable environmental practices while at the same time greatly expanding human access to food and vital resources. So the question is: how do we achieve a balance between human needs and biological destruction?

Desiccation: Dormancy: Deluge

(A triangle) Between me / G-d / and the water

Video for “What We Wrote on the Water”

While we do encourage you to visit the installation in person, that obviously is not possible for everyone, so we are making the video available for separate viewing. Please enjoy Maternal Mitochondria’s experimental video “What We Wrote on the Water”!

The installation is available by appointment in Santa Fe, NM until February 8th 2021. E-mail msagan1035@aol.com or call 505-231-1922 to schedule a viewing.

What We Wrote on the Water

Maternal Mitochondria has a new art show up with Vital Spaces arts organization! Located in the Midtown Annex, 1600 St. Michaels Drive, and available by appointment only (in order to ensure COVID-safe practices), What We Wrote on The Water is a video installation constructed from the poetry of borders, drumming in a dream, the scarce commodity of water in the desert, and gestures in ink. The installation will be available to experience from January 9th-February 8th, and there is no fee!

In a dark enclosed womb of space, the video projects over a large vase, filled with water. It features the Japanese art of suminagashi, spoken poetry, and percussive drums. The projection overlaps the glass, creating new shadows and reflections. This is an immersive experience, playing with materials such as ink and glass, and the metaphor of water as the unconscious mind.

What We Wrote on the Water explores the dialectical flow between creator and viewer, form and meaning, being both on the surface of the water and under it. The viewer leaves refreshed, having temporarily been elsewhere.

FOR APPOINTMENTS: From January 9th-February 8th, please call Isabel at 505-231-1922 or e-mail Miriam at msagan1035@aol.com.

installation art featuring poetry, suminagashi, water, glass, and drumming.

Maternal Mitochondria is a mother-daughter creative duo collaborating in Santa Fe. Miriam Sagan is a writer and Isabel Winson-Sagan is an interdisciplinary artist. Their bilingual video installation of suminagashi and poetry, Thresh/hold, premiered in an abandoned square grain silo at Studio Kura in Itoshima, Japan in 2018. They produced a poetry and suminagashi installation in Santa Fe’s Railyard Park with more than twenty participants, aged 4 to 80. The walking path at Santa Fe Skies RV Park on Route 14 is host to their Fairy Houses installation in recycled metal, which has had numerous visitors during the pandemic. For What We Wrote on the Water, they have also collaborated with local drummer Tim Brown.