Obtusus cum Acumine

Prayer Flags for the Garden

Obtusus cum Acumine (OCA), Prayer Flags for the Garden, creates a subtle energy field prompting the interaction of moment, place and event and is a synthesis of the artist's interests in the spiritual evolution of the collective, book making and social dialogue.

Prayer flags are a pre-Buddhist Tibetan shamanistic practice of inscribing text and image on flags used during healing ceremonies to promote peace, compassion, strength and wisdom. The flag's prayers are blown by the wind and become a permanent part of the universe. Health and harmony prevail when all of the elements (usually 5 sets of 5 colors, read from left to right: blue = sky/space, white = water, red = fire, green = air/wind, yellow = earth), are in balance. New flags mounted alongside the old symbolize the ongoing cycle of life.

Addressing the current debate of 'what is a book', OCA pushes boundaries while alluding to our original connection with wood as a writing surface and the term leaves to indicate pages. Maintaining the integrity of the paper/text/image/fastening components of  'book', (whose etymology from the German means beech wood and the Latin term Codex, a metaphor for the trunks (codex) of trees). Ms. Minervini with an interest rooted in bookmaking, proposes a text object that can be opened and read and also hung as a flag.

Obtusus cum Acumine will remain in Le Petit Versailles until the leaves decay and disintegrate as the artist joins the collective, relinquishes authorship, and becomes another witness to this process and the ephemeral reality of the work and its eternal meaning resonate within the psyche of the viewer.

The artist invites an open dialogue with on site viewers exchanging real time images, comments and impressions vis electronic media including Allied Productions: http://alliedproductions.org, the Obtusus cum Acumine tumblr blog: http://luciamariaminervini.tumblr.com, on FaceBook at Le Petit Versailles or Lucia Maria Minervini or at http://minervaspool.com.

Obtusus cum Acumine; Prayer Flags for the Garden, is offered in observation of the delicate harmony of our symbiosis with our spaces. These jewels of photosynthesis, preserved and shared in community, honor the bees for their gifts of flowers and wax. Just as our cosmic union supersedes ego and commemorates our instinctive history, OCA connects all that vibrates in each moment to the omnipresent planetary winds to carry these messages beyond the beyond.