When I moved to the Bay Area and began making sculptures again in 1973, I found that their forms and materials reflected these recent peak experiences: the sculptures took the form of hoops and ribbons, and often lent themselves to being danced with or tossed by the wind. These works found a ready niche in the early ceremonies of the Goddess Movement, which was then taking form in the Bay Area. My largest sculptures were hung over stages in ceremonies while others were worn by the leaders.
All the same, I had qualms about coming from my background and appearing to appropriate forms that were so closely related to sacred symbols of the Native Americans. As the years passed I have come to rely increasingly on my own dreams for the genesis of my sculptural forms. What I have found is a new working vocabulary, following its own innate evolution, from quasi-literal wall reliefs of wings into abstract and asymmetrical forms, and from asymmetrical forms back into symmetry in a new synthesis: free-standing columnar constructions with a distinct human or spiritual presence.
The first of these freestanding "figures" is called Queen Totem. In spite of its name, this sculpture is a far cry from anything Native American. The second is called High Fashion. It was while beginning work on the third sculpture in this series that I had a realization. The radio was on in my studio, and commentator Joan Marler was speaking of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, whose lifework has been to establish concrete scholarly evidence for the long lost goddess religions of ancient Europe. As I attached the head piece to the cylindrical armature of this sculpture, Marler talked of how archetypal goddess imagery is now turning up in the work of contemporary women artists.
I paused. It all fit. Here I was, finally forming a vocabulary that resonated with my own family's roots in ancient European culture, and that shared archetypal common ground with the Native American traditions that had influenced me so deeply. What's more, I was being informed that I was part of a movement, even as I had done nothing but pursue my own individual path.
I have thought more and more about this in the days since that broadcast. It is clear to me that these figures form a statement that is at once spiritual and political, for the women's spirituality movement, and images of the goddess-be they old or new-fly in the face of the dominant patriarchy. My figures present a series of "twentieth century" goddesses, drawn from contemporary materials and symbolically adapted, I hope, to our present needs.
Mary Curtis Ratcliff, 1992
