91ε
Muliebrity: The State of Being Feminine
“Muliebrity” is coordinate term to “virility,” referring to qualities of femininity. 91ε staff, faculty, and students were invited to explore how they connect with and empower the feminine aspects of the self, community, or greater collective via artistic processes. The Wild Heart Gallery proudly presented a series of artist statements from this exhibition, which ran from November, 2016 through January 2017.
Artist: Laura Murphy
Title: Year of the Monkey
Laura Murphy “Year of the Monkey.”
I created this piece over a year agobutnow that we are in theChinese Zodiac’s Year of the Monkey it seems fitting to title my previously untitled drawing, Year of the Monkey. What’s more celebratory for me is that I am a Monkey, rather,I was born in 1980, which was also the Year of the Monkey. While I am no expert on the ChineseZodiac, I will say that I relate to and aspire to cultivate Monkey’splayful, energetic,curious and collectivist nature. I also feel challenged as I persevere with thework of training aspects of my monkey mind which has been accustomed toswinging from the trees.
WhileI have been an artist since I was a child, over the last three years my work has tremendously matured because of my intense interest in the healing artsand how I can create my own physical, emotional and spiritual healing through art-making and story telling. Both the baby and the mommy monkey are aspects of me and my exploration of the concepts ofre-parenting myself, attachment, transcendence of traumatic relationships, and the cessation of addictivepatterns which cause me tosuffer.
This piece is also anexpression ofgratitude.I feel so grateful for the Multiversalintelligent, cooperativedesign whichinter-connects all beingsandtethers usto theCreator andto Mother Earth. I also celebrate myown homosapien mother, as our experiencehas been my most satisfyingfamilial relationship. We are so blessed becauseour relationshipcontinues to heal andexpand in loving, exciting directions.
Finally, this piece, along with many others in my growing body of work, represent an effort to heal my relationship with food and the hooks ofLifelongeating disorders. Immersing myself in the converging healingnarratives which culminateand channelthrough expressive art-making and identity restoration, in conjunction witha high rawvegan fruitarian Lifestyle, empoweringmovement, and spiritual practices, serve as an integrative healing process whichfacilitates theembodiment of my own personalrenaissance, springtime andrebirth. Year of the Monkey is an intentionally rendered space created with the goal of increasing my own capacity for and ability to co-createjoy,safety,intimacy, softness, forgiveness,love, and lot’s of divinesweetness and freshness in relationship with myselfand my community.91ε the Moderator
