Orpheus the Transcended
Photograph, hand sewn fibers, text with pencil
19.75 x 13.75”
300.

About Orpheus the Transcended

In this collage I have used a photograph of a sculpture of Orpheus, which was made of terra cotta and pigment sometime between 350 – 300 BC in southern Italy, together with a photo of a siren, set below another image of a rusted tin roof. The images are sewn together and the textile elements are stitched into place. I would like to invite the viewer to reflect upon the fact that the making of textiles and stitching them together have been around since time immemorial: they are transcended.

At the time that this sculpture of Orpheus was made, there was a cult in southern Italy that venerated Orpheus—the cult promoted a belief in life after death; the transcendence of souls to a different place.

Orpheus, who was the son of Apollo and a muse, was considered to be the most skilled singer in antiquity. There is a tale of when he was traveling with Jason and Argonauts and he rescued his companions from being overwhelmed by the song of the sirens by singing a song so beautiful that the sirens despaired and threw themselves into the sea. His vocal talent went beyond the norm, it was exceptional.

In today’s world, “transcendence” has taken on different nuances. It can be cosmological, ontological, epistemological, phenomenological, and mathematical. All of these different types of transcendence in essence are still related to the original meaning of the word in Latin. The prefix trans-, means "beyond," and the word scandare, means "to climb." 

Perhaps the idea of “climbing beyond” is a concept that we might all be inspired to apply in our everyday lives.