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Found-Object Doors |
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"Doors" built from found objects function as divination boards,
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Found-Object DoorsThis is the procedure: Found objects are gathered and formed into small groupings over a period of several years or decades. They are rearranged and regrouped over the years. The symbols start to suggest patterns and stories as the pieces are massaged into place. The objects become the physical door for an idea that births itself into our world.
Not all of my doors look like doors, but all are intended to function as portals to other worlds. Each door is an attempt to create a mythic artifact, a physical manifestation of the shamanistic dream time, a corridor projecting into the temporal world from the other side. Ritual altar doors come in various forms, some involving large-scale manipulations in the landscape, but the smaller portable versions of the type I create are usually referred to as divination boards, whisper stones, seer tools, urim and thummin, etc. Urim and ThumminUrim and thummin are physical objects that focus psychic energy. Most take the form of smaller ritual surfaces or altars or shrines built from symbolic objects. Although moveable, the objects are ritually aligned with the points of the compass, usually facing points of rising and setting in the east or west. They are regarded as being moveable counterparts of ancient sacred places like medicine wheels, stone circles and other astronomically-aligned mounds/earthworks/pyramids. Regardless of size, these objects are all physical manifestations of myths and dreams and serve as points of entry between the worlds. For this reason, they are sometimes called spirit portals or dream doors. Like all shamanastic devices, their level of power is in part relative to the user, since they work by focusing the psyche of the user. In more than one sense, a mind containing a sense of the mythic and the timeless is more likely to be operating on the frequency of the portal than a neglected or deprived mind. Archetype ResonatorsThe doors are objects of meditation. They are built from found objects chosen for archetypical significance, which is more or less like saying the doors are built from symbols. These symbols whisper stories, shout mythic patterns, cause archetypes to resonate in the mind. The doors never tell a single story but rather multiple variations of the story, as is the case with folk tales and dreams. |
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This particular door is called "The Beam Says Thankee" and is marked at the base with the sigule of Eld. All things serve the Beam. |
Other Names for Ritual Altar-DoorsA list of terms and expressions used to describe ritual altar-doors in their various forms, not limited to the small or portable:
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