Chakra Maps
Whilst working in Thailand and wanting to work with an immediacy that is not possible with glassmaking and ceramics. This led me to make a series of chakra maps using domestic objects we use everyday in every culture, which possess meaning beyond their use.
The first map I made was with classic white china bought at a seconds market in Lampang.
The crown chakra representing the spirit is a large white dinner plate, generous and open like a sun. The third eye chakra representing the intuition is a gravy boat, full of the sauce of life. The throat chakra, representing the voice, is a cup and saucer. The heart chakra a teapot for pouring out love. The solar plexus chakra representing our innate power is a large open soup dish. The sacral charka, where emotion is held is a deep footed desert bowl. And the base chakra representing rootedness and sexuality is a lidded sugar bowl. The differences in scale of these objects and how they relate to each other is important.
The cloth and the thread are important as context, the body, the alter, the table.
As each object has meaning in terms of the chakra points, intuition, emotion, spirit sexuality etc it also embodies so many other meanings. Each object has its own character and personality and language that is easily read because we are all so familiar with them.
These maps reach across boundaries of class, culture, society, sex, nationality, religion. They are both personal and general, humorous and melancholy, spiritual and banal, physical and conceptual. They can be made by anyone in the world and be meaningful to that person and everyone else.
Designed by Katy Holford
© Kathryn M Holford, 2015