A year-long ritual-based art project transforming an ordinary object into a sacred one
Spring Equinox 2022–2023
Instagram.com/sacred_object_project
The Artwork
The Sacred Object Project was a year-long conceptual investigation that used daily ritual and energy as its primary medium. For 365 consecutive days, I performed the same action: holding this small sculpture (or a photograph of it when traveling) and consciously projecting seven sacred energies (love, joy, wonder, kindness, compassion, gratitude and peace) into it.
The daily ritual of projecting the energies was at the core of creating this artwork. I used the energies as the medium to create it. It’s an artistic ritual and practice that uses my spirituality to create an artwork.
The object serves as both subject and vessel, while the documentation (365 Instagram posts examining the process, my healing journey, connections to other artists, evolving understanding of sacredness and my spirituality in relation to my art practice) creates a parallel text-based work of reflection.
Background
This artwork emerged from a direct spiritual instruction I received as I awoke on the morning of February 15, 2022: “Make a sacred object.” Some may call it inspiration…for me, it was a message from Spirit. Two years earlier to the day, I had suffered a significant head injury that affected my vision and the course of my life.
At first I didn’t understand what the instruction truly meant or its purpose, but I knew to trust the process and listen to the whisper. About a month later, I began infusing the sacred energies of love, joy, wonder, kindness, compassion, gratitude, and peace into a sculpture I created from clay, sticks, and paint.
For years, I had been suppressing my spirituality in my art. I wasn’t ready to share that side of myself out of fear of not being taken seriously as an artist. All the while, I secretly infused these energies in each artwork. Before building each piece, I would write those words of the sacred energies on the canvas, feel them, and energetically embed them into the surface before covering them with paper, plaster, and paint.
This sacred object project required the opposite of me as an artist. I used ritual and the energies themselves as the artistic medium, bringing forward the invisible intentions I had always placed in the background. What I had kept secret became the artwork itself. The unseen became the focus and purpose, changing my art practice and myself as an artist.
Process & Methodology
Every day for an entire year, I focused on the object while consciously transmitting the seven sacred energies through intention, visualization and embodied feeling. When traveling and unable to physically be with the artpiece, I used a photograph as a proxy to maintain the energetic connection.
The documentation process was tracked through written reflections posted on Instagram, archiving my thoughts and experiences of sustained ritual practice, the object’s transformation, reflections on spiritual and artistic concepts, connections to other artists’ works, and my personal healing journey. All documentation is archived at @sacred_object_project.
Defining Sacred
Through the process of creating this work, I developed a personal definition:
Sacred = mindful presence + intentional action + connection to universal creative energy
This reframing allowed me to understand that:
- I am sacred when present and connected to creative Source
- Any object can become sacred through deliberate intention
- Each artwork I create is sacred when I embed it with intention, love, meaning and purpose
In Context
Hilma af Klint (1862-1944)
From 1896-1908, af Klint participated in séances with four other women artists called “The Five,” receiving direct spiritual instructions from entities she called “The High Masters” to create her abstract paintings. I received the same kind of direct instruction on February 15, 2022: “Make a sacred object.” Like af Klint, who hid her spiritual work for decades fearing she wouldn’t be taken seriously, I spent years burying my spirituality in my art until The Sacred Object Project forced me to make the invisible energetic work the art itself.
Agnes Pelton (1881-1961)
Pelton moved to the California desert in 1932 for spiritual isolation, waking at 5am daily to meditate before painting luminous abstractions where light was actual spiritual substance informed by her Agni Yoga studies. My practice works the same way. I start each studio day with meditation to access universal creative energy, then consciously project the seven sacred energies into the sculpture through intention, visualization, and embodied feeling as actual transmittable substances.
Guadalupe Maravilla (1976-present)
After his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis in 2016, Maravilla created his Disease Thrower series, large-scale sound sculptures he uses in actual healing ceremonies at institutions like the Whitney and New Museum. He states: “My work is a form of medicine. I create these instruments to heal myself and to heal others.” The Sacred Object Project emerged exactly two years after my head injury on February 15, 2020, treating art-making as literal healing medicine as the seven sacred energies passed through me, healing me while I infused them into the object over 365 consecutive days.
Artist Reflection (2025)
It’s been almost three years since the official conclusion of The Sacred Object Project, but it continues to live within me and the work I create. I’m still learning and growing from it.
The conscious transfer of my pure essence and the infusion of those seven energies into this object, my art, and my daily life has enriched and clarified my artistic practice. This project opened me up and helped me become courageous in sharing my personal truth through my art. I’m no longer timid about sharing my story, my point of view on how the universe works, and my spiritual experiences through my art practice.
Thank you, Universe, for all that you’ve given me.
