The Raving Ones is a 28 foot painting installation by American artist Angela Fraleigh consisting of three major (78 x 57 inch) paintings on hand-drawn wallpaper, which made especially for the VIP Lounge of Untitled Art, Miami Beach.
Fraleigh has spent her career exploring narrative art’s hierarchical patterns. Keenly observing how images and roles from Western art history intersect with contemporary representation and attitudes, Fraleigh uncovers why certain tropes remain relevant, who they benefit, and how. Over the last decade, she has worked with institutions to create several site-specific solo exhibitions that reveal alternative accounts in their permanent collections. In rearranging the images of the past, the artist transforms how we see ourselves in the present.
“Show me your witches and I’ll show you your feelings about women” – Pam Grossman
In this new series Fraleigh draws parallels between art production and spellcraft, harnessing the magic of making the invisible, visible. Ecstatic Maenads gather amongst a frenzied tangle of medicinal herbs and serpents to raucously summon the powers of mythical female figures such as: Artemis, Hecate and Medusa to aid in casting a spell.
“The witch is a shapeshifter. She transforms from vixen to hag, healer to hellion, adversary to advocate, based on who seeks her. The witch is at once female divinity, female ferocity, and female transgression. She is all and she is one. Most of all, she is misunderstood.” – Kristen J. Sollee
The work is part archaeological romp through representation, featuring goddesses in both their celebrated and reviled forms; and part reclamation, as it shifts the lens to reveal a more complex, diverse history. They are layered with magical signifiers and enchanted materials like crystals, moon water, and color magic. Each work is blessed and accompanied by a custom spell for Self-Sovereignty written by professional witch, Pam Grossman.
The maenad serves as a symbolic abandonment of the confining roles and identities of femininity and as an embrace of the pleasure seeking erratic, rebellious, unconcerned-with-popular-opinion kind of figure. In ancient sources, their transcendence gives them unparalleled strength and courage as well as a disregard for earthly consequences. Followers of Dionysus, referred to as the “The Raving Ones”, were feared because of their wildness, and they became a considerable source of fright for those who would seek to contain them.
Each painting serves as a kind of spell — one that disrupts, re-imagines, and re-signifies the female characters from familiar tales so as to challenge our perceptions of the past and experience a different future.
The links between the “witch” and systemic power structures such as capitalism, organized religion, and the patriarchy are profound and painfully relevant today as it relates to female power, bodily autonomy, and persecution. In her ground-breaking book Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici makes the important claim that the medieval witch-hunt across Europe was a necessary precondition for the emergence of flourishing capitalism. Women’s speech, movement, and social relationships were tightly controlled with the help of witch hunts and accusations of witchcraft on poor, peasant women, were in part an effort to dispossess them of the land they lived on. The witch-hunt was about controlling women’s bodies to repopulate a workforce for the wealthy.
In this moment of violent, institutional attack on bodily autonomy, the maenad responds with wild, joyful, reckless love and fierce, frenzied, protective anger–summoning the power to upend damaging societal structures.
Spell for Self-Sovereignty
by Pam Grossman
Ingredients
Artemisia a.k.a. Mugwort (dried or fresh)
Rosemary (dried or fresh)
A pinch of saffron
1 Rose of any color that catches your breath (including stem/thorns)
1 Key (skeleton key preferred but any key will do)
A small bag (large enough to hold the above)
Small mirror
1 candle of any color you feel called to use in a fire-safe holder, and something to light it with
Salt
Casting the Circle
Use the salt to draw a circle around you. Then recite the following, facing each direction as it is named:
Welcome, Air in the East, direction of new beginnings. Thank you for filling me with the boons of breath, of unbridled voice, of sacred song, of speech to power. Blessed be.
Welcome, Fire in the South, direction of passionate will. Thank you for igniting me with conviction and shameless desire, and for keeping my flame lit so that I may light the way for others. Blessed be.
Welcome, Water in the West, direction of the tides. Thank you for teaching me to shape-shift, to cleanse all poisons flowing through and around me, and to replenish me with luscious potions. Blessed be.
Welcome, Earth in the North, direction of green medicine. Thank you for providing me with the gifts of dirt and gems and healing weeds, and for offering sanctuary within my body, beneath your branches. Blessed be.
Welcome, Ancestors of Below, direction of hallowed shadow. Thank you for supporting me with your ancient wisdom, and for reminding me of the deep secrets and great legacy that dwell in my cells. Blessed be.
Welcome, Guides of Above, direction of infinite light. Thank you for helping me look ahead with hope, so that I may follow your path toward a brighter tomorrow, and be a shining candle of expansion as I rise. Blessed be.
Welcome, Splendid Center, direction of the veiled gate. Thank you for allowing me to partake in the grand cycle of birth, death, and resurrection, and for allowing me to reside at the crossroads of mystery, enchantment, and divine love. Blessed be.
The circle is cast. We are between worlds.
Light the candle and say:
I light this candle to Artemis, Goddess of the Wild,
to Hecate, Goddess of the Dark Garden,
and to all who belong to the Sisterhood of Serpents.
Hold key in hand and say:
With this key I unlock the Gate. Blessed be all who enter the land of True Knowing.
Place the key in bag.
Hold rosemary in hand and say:
May this rosemary help me remember Who I Am: a child of the gods, living in vessel named (say your own name).
Place rosemary in bag.
Hold mugwort in hand and say:
May this mugwort bring visions that guide me to deep freedom, and help me liberate the oppressed.
Place mugwort in bag.
Hold saffron in hand and say:
May this saffron cloak me with the Mother’s magic, and protect me from those who would inflict harm.
Place saffron in bag.
Hold the rose in your hand and say:
May this rose be a sign of my thousandfold beauty, and may its thorns guard me from all who would diminish my worth.
Tie bag closed.
Hold mirror in hand, look into it, and say:
May I see my own majesty, and may I be crowned with the luminous lemniscate of self-direction and surrender.
Turn mirror away from you, and say:
And may all malevolent forces be henceforth deflected from my body, my spirit, and my valiant heart.
Place the mirror facing outward from a window (simply leaning it on a windowsill facing outside will do, though some may choose to hang it more permanently.)
Stand tall with your dominant hand pointing up to the sky and your non-dominant hand pointing down to the ground, and say:
So it is, So I am, So Mote It Be!
When this is complete, reopen the circle of the spell. Simply repeat the calling of the 7 directions in the opposite order you called them in, saying Thank you, instead of Welcome, starting with the Center e.g. “Thank you, Splendid Center…”
Gather the salt and then place outside as an offering (though not on grass or plants – on dirt, stone, or a paved road; or in water are recommended).
Keep the candle lit for as long as you are able. If you must leave it unattended, simply snuff out (don’t blow), and then relight at another time with the same candle invocation above. Once candle has completely burned down, you may bury the remaining wax underground, or otherwise dispose of in the ritualized manner of your choosing.
Carry the spell bag with you or sleep with it under your pillow, whenever you are in need of strength, protection, or magical reinforcement. Keep the mirror facing outward from your window as a protective ward for as long as you feel called to.
May you be blessed with independence, choice, and compassionate power.
Blessed be.
☽◯☾
