Julie Wagner's Studio

Ink and hand-carved rubber stamps on Nideggen paper, mounted on amate paper.  H. 6″  L. 48″  “Goddess Chronicles” is a book about the goddess culture and how much knowledge of it has been lost. I used a bark paper accordion to refer back to the pre-Conquest codices of Mexico, many of which were burned when the Spanish arrived. It also refers to the practice of the Aztecs, who, when they conquered another people, would burn their books and write new ones, revising history to make themselves preeminent. The images, made of hand-carved rubber stamps, are taken from many different cultures and refer to various goddesses and their attributes. The names are also of goddesses who were once well-known and venerated. The book is rubbed with red pigment, once a common practice at shrines like Catal Hayuk [Neolithic site in modern Turkey]. All the images are overlaid and sometimes erased and smudged to give a sense of time. There is an underlying progression to the images from birth through life to death to rebirth. I wanted this book to have a real sense of age and survival against all odds.”