Don’t Mess with the Voodoo

The Magic Garden

12-1-07

I’ve never been superstitious. I’ll walk under every ladder you put in front of me. But after three miscarriages in twelve months I’ll do just about anything to get a baby. “Don’t mess with the Voodoo,” they say in New Orleans, my favorite vampiric party town. In other words, there may not be spirits floating around, but just in case there are, might as well make them comfy.

The moment you enter our houseboat you encounter our little fertility shrine on the ledge above the kitchen table. It’s been there for months now and I like it. An African fertility goddess carved of dark wood anchors the shrine, standing eight inches tall with arms outstretched as if to say, “come on baby, you just come right to big mama.” Small breasted with curvy hips (like Jodi), she was a gift from friends who also had a rough go but ultimately had a lovely baby girl. At her feet sits a luminous pyrite egg in a small leaf shaped dish. It too was a gift from another new mother, our neighbor Valencia who procured it from Amma, the world famous hugging guru. The egg’s shiny coolness feels magical and heavy in the palm of my hand and Valencia insisted that when she got it she felt it belonged to us. Eggs symbolize fertility and the silver heft of it gives it a notable substance. A small painting of a happy pregnant woman with a smiling baby flying in her belly stands beside the egg and below the painting sits my favorite thing of all, a pair of baby sandals decorated with elephants. What is it about baby shoes… I guess shoes make the man, whether he’s 50 years old or 50 days.

The area in front of our houseboat contains even more symbolic objets d’art. I’m out there daily watering, pruning and communing with my little fief of potted palms, succulents and citrus trees. In one of these numerous bowls of terra firma at the foot of our gangplank sits a regal succulent under which I’ve placed two little wedding cake figurines. Before these little personal action figures I’ve placed a toy elephant, trunk up, protecting his territory. Each time I enter the house I check to be sure Jodi’s figurine is upright and standing strong. So far so good. Superstition can be fun.

We recently watched the movie “The Secret” and while I’m the first guy to dismiss New Age (rhymes with sewage) nonsense, I do think there is something to focusing on one’s specific intentions to manifest one’s goals. I have used my art to do just that the past few years. I got married at age forty after many years of wandering aimlessly in the singles desert. One day in my late 30s I woke up hung over and lonely and said enough is enough and started painting a series called NOW, nude silhouettes drawn with the word NOW written hundreds of times. The figure from my mind’s eye was the woman I desired: shapely, triumphant, confident.

NOW - The Woman of My Dreams

I painted over 30 of these pieces, and not long afterward an amazing thing called Jodi happened. Boom! Not only was she cool and cute, she looked exactly like the figure in the paintings. After our third miscarriage I felt it was time to drop another intention bomb into the universe. So I started painting vibrant balls dropping from the sky - bouncing baby balls of joy that floated through the swirling pathways of our lives, pathways which in the paintings were made of comfort food recipes from antique cookbooks and vintage maps, metaphors for wisdom and guidance. I call the series BOUNCE. Simultaneously, I sculpted a number of found object “angels” to usher in our boy to a soft landing. Made of mostly driftwood I’ve picked up on surf outings the past 1-1/2 years, these rustic pieces form pathways or landing strips, so that when the angels look for a place to land, I’ve provided a clear map. Call it a GPS for the spirit world. One sits on the entrance of the houseboat to the left of the front door.

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Don’t Mess with the Voodoo

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Don’t Mess with the Voodoo

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