In the residential neighborhood of Upper Nyack, a decrepit estate is getting a new purpose. The buildings are shells of a former prestigious life, the land is being reclaimed. Currently artists are being invited to share their outdoor sculptures in the tall grass and wooded areas of the space named River Hook. One of these artists is Lisa Levart (www.goddessonearth.com). Her work is about invoking feminine archetypes with photography.
After parking, I strolled along the serpentine asphalt path past a small brick house. Just off the path in front of the woods, there is a large floating portrait on a banner. The banner is translucent and flows in the breeze. Gazing at the piece, I notice similar banners within the wooded area. They are all about 5 to 6 feet tall, and 3 feet wide photographs hanging between 3 to 6 feet from the earth.
They are all portraits of Indigenous Women. The colors are earthy with bright colors popping out. The light sometimes bounces on the piece, other times, the light flows through the piece and lands on the leaves and branches behind it.
The first piece is of a young woman confronting the viewer. She looks down at me as if to alert me of an opening, a beginning. It is a gaze that is quiet, steady.
I quietly walk past this image, and find the grass matted to create a path inward, into a clearing in the woods where the ground that was so verdant a minute ago is brown, covered in brittle leaves. An old metal skeleton of a machine is on the edge of the space. More portraits are present here, like stained glass windows in churches. They tell a story to remind us why I am here, why this space is special, sacred.
These are important figures in an untold story. It is a story not of my people but of the people whose land I walk on. Together, within this shaded nave, they symbolize a reclaiming. A reclaiming of the gaze, a reclaiming of bodies, a reclaiming of stories, a reclaiming of the land.
There is an yearning feeling with the space the series takes up. I want these to be bigger. I want to get lost in a maze viewing these images, not stop in this clearing. I want to lose myself in the sacred, quiet space that is created. But I can’t. I am always steps away from the asphalt path just beyond. And I know that that space, the asphalt space, that is the space I come from.
It is curious that the same week I saw this I became aware of how afraid of people I have become. How over Covid, I was afraid of being close to at first, strangers and at times I was even afraid of being close to people I loved and lived with. In the past few weeks, I have become afraid of people’s ideas.
And here stand women. Strong. The artist is not ‘of’ these women. She stands outside, like me. Is this a call for us to recognize the sacred but something other. And how do I show my respect for that sacred other?
I ended by sitting in front of two pieces farthest inward. On the left: an elder woman in yellow umber clothes that hangs close to the earth. She stands on rocks and boulders, holding out a hand with something in it - a warning that I am too close. On the right is a mother aged woman looking off to the distance holding her chest below her breast. She is dressed in black with black flightless feathers along her collar. Her hair is a bright purple and pink. The mountains behind her seperate to sky at her jawbone. There is a heaviness in her grasping and deep sorrow in her gaze. This is the innermost image. It is the innermost image of the entire series. This is the image the others protect.
This is not a celebratory experience. This is about a deep ache. A deep loss. These portraits draw me into the land so show me what has been lost. The claiming of the earth, the people, the stories, the children. Each portrait emits their own story, together they chant of heartbreak that can only be shared, and known from within. It is a kind of pain that needs to be guarded. It is a pain of the soul.