bell exchange
bell exchange is an element of “Sound and Noise” - a show of the No-Eyes Viewing Wall at Brooklyn Zen Center curated by Noah Fischer and Terence Caulkins.
bell exchange is part of the evening performance. I will distribute a selection of bells to audience members. These have been created with my interpretation of the namu kie butsu stitch as part of the performance event. Several types of bells with red ribbon, tulle, and satin fabirc have been used in the formal construction of each unique object. The exchange of bells reflects ideas of spiritual awakenings, the male and female inherent in bell symbolism, and the resonance of practice in one’s life experience, as well as the deep or joyful sound they provide to the world. The exchange of the bells refers to trade and barter of valued goods as well as the celebration of ritual experience.
Since I survived a near death experience in 2001, I have been making good luck objects, which friends and family attribute as bearing helpful aspects which assist at major life events. I have made hundreds of such objects for hundreds of life events for friends and requests for friends of friends. Part of this has been to help pass time as a kind of meditation and endurance through my ongoing battle with severe pain, as a survivor of RSD and CRPS. Before I learned of the rakusu stitch, I had been making charms while asking for blessings to be provided with each stitch, bead, or notch in the creative method I used. In bell exchange, I incorporate this method of my past creative practice while referencing Zen traditions.
The giving of bells as part of Sound and Noise exhibit is the first exchange of these types of objects with a larger group of community members.
Events and activities will be posted as they occur on this tumblelog related to the bell exchange and “Sound and Noise” project.
