“Take Care Of The Pain” Is A Message To Light Your Way Forward
Erika DeVries, Hudson Valley interdisciplinary artist of photography, performance, neon video and handcraft, had been waking to lights shining at the point of her triangular house. They were gentle but imploring, flickering intermittently and randomly to hold her attention for stretches of the night. A trusted healer told her the lights were there “to take good care.” Another healer told her these were her star sisters, coming to let her know they were supporting her and her work.
Those lights were the inspiration for her new neon installation, on display at Basilica Hudson through April. As an artist in residence at Basilica, she created a 12-foot-tall structure titled Seven Sisters, a beacon in the darkness of these past months that tells us to “take care of the pain.” (The Seven Sisters refers to the Pleiades, a star cluster which in Greek mythology represents the seven daughters of Atlas. In the neon work, DeVries placed the stars in the position of the Pleiades constellation pattern.)
DeVries, who currently has a neon work up at Hudson Yards, admits that she feels uncomfortable talking about her mystical experience with the visiting colors, but she’d been having these visions for years, and they explain the story behind the piece, which perches atop the Basilica’s west entrance. DeVries has provided viewers with a guided meditation from Suzanne Hill of the OHM Center in New York City (available on Basilica’s website) to listen to on site or after viewing the piece. Below it, there’s a lockbox, pens, paper and writing prompts where visitors can reflect and respond to the artwork.
Less mystical but equally providential was the timing of the project. Basilica had approached DeVries about doing a residency at least a year before COVID showed up. DeVries hadn’t settled on what her project would be at the time, but during the period the residency was put on hold, this piece took shape.
“I’d done a writing exercise, and what came to me was ‘take care of the pain,” DeVries says. “It seemed like this was a message for me to share on a larger scale. I feel in some odd way that my work is speaking to people a lot more right now.”
Indeed, while we’re in the betwixt and between of staying in or going out, this is a piece that speaks to us as we contemplate the past year and prepare ourselves to move forward. It is, you might say, a work cosmically ordered specifically for this moment.
“I like connecting with people around what is driving us, and that often relates back to the more we take care of our own trauma, the more space we have caring for others,” she says. Her proposition to viewers: “I ask you to be bold in your tenderness and caretaking of where it hurts.”
Portrait of the artist by Megumi Shauna Arai
DeVries’ message pieces are often designed in the handwriting of her children or other loved ones. For Seven Sisters, she asked her youngest of three sons for his written transcription. A soul quality comes through in handwriting, DeVries believes, and neon has a soul quality, too — it breathes and pulses. The design was fabricated by Lite Brite Neon Studio in Kingston, New York.
Incidentally, her collaboration with Lite Brite Neon is more than professional. When she was living in Brooklyn and new to working with neon, she searched for a simpatico neon fabricator for her earlier projects. She found Lite Brite and developed a deep friendship with the studio and with Matt Dilling, its owner, and now her partner. Three years ago they moved up to the Hudson Valley and opened a second shop in Kingston. The two also run Cygnets Way, a collaborative that provides interdisciplinary programming, lectures, classes, workshops, and other programs that combine their spiritual seeking and practices with other creative people and their endeavors. The space is just up the stairs from Lite Brite Neon.
With Basilica being closed right now, the area is desolate and sad, save for the message emanating from the building. Dusk and dawn are the best times to see it, DeVries advises. Her residency will conclude with a public Zoom event in April, where DeVries will read from the notes collected at the installation. Check Basilica’s website for details.
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