Mother Church

Christopher has always believed in the power of women. Raised in a home where stereotypical gender roles were the default, he watched his smart and capable mother manage their household, shouldering the weight of daily domestic and caregiving tasks, all while working a regular job. Christopher understood that she was the heart and hearth of their home. But he also saw the disparity between her labor and his father’s, and as the years passed he noticed again and again the vastly different expectations our society has for men and women. 

“How did we get here?” he asks. How did the powerful feminine forces he’s seen in motion all his life become relegated to primarily subservient, domestic roles? Why have we come to expect women to be more responsible, and to do more and more labor, all while granting them less authority?

As a child, Christopher found escape through reading. Through his appetite for books, he found his way to mythologies that viewed women – and the world – much differently than the Judeo-Christian traditions in which he’d been raised. He discovered goddesses who contained complexities he’d never heard or seen in reference to the meek and mild Virgin Mary. In addition to embodying the creative forces he’d come to expect from feminine figures, these new goddesses were wrathful, tempestuous, sexual, loving, and powerful. They birthed not just messiahs, but entire universes. And they were revered as central figures in the worlds to which they gave form.

When he was still young, wise women began to visit Christopher in his dreams, carrying him into the sky on the backs of birds. Something changed in him, and he started to dream of events that occurred first in his dreaming mind, and then soon in real life. Upon discovering these new precognitive abilities, Christopher’s mother sought out women who could help him understand his intuitive powers. Since then, he has studied tirelessly under a host of women teachers, learning and practicing the ways of Nature.

Christopher studied feminism alongside his other teachings, and working to help others challenge constrictive societal and gender norms has become the backbone of his work. He strives to this day to continue learning, growing, and evolving, and Mother Church represents the latest phase of his evolution.

Mother Church is the culmination of a lifelong study and appreciation of the feminine, the great Mystery, and the Divine. Set in a domestic home, the exhibition allows the viewer to experience familiar spaces and household objects, feeling the presence of the feminine woven into ordinary aspects of daily life. As viewers interact with the pieces in the show, they transform them from dining tables to altars, from kitchen knives into ceremonial althames, and from ironing boards into shrines.

Throughout the exhibition, viewers will engage with the Goddesses and their symbols in a variety of iterations. Each form represents a different historical era and its concurrent artistic movement, and all are united by the Divine Feminine in this unique and intimate home setting. Highlighted within the show are Goddesses who have been forgotten, demonized, or deemed unworthy. Here, figures like Medusa, Baba Yaga, Sedna, Aine, and Sybyl are reinterpreted with reverence.

Just as the artworks in the show are transformed from everyday objects into symbols of the Divine, the exhibit itself will undergo its own transformation, becoming a Temple. Every few days, Mother Church will feature a teacher offering their own unique wisdom on how to live in our modern world. Through ceremonies, lessons, meditations, and movement, guests will have the opportunity to connect to ancient energies, create new meanings for their lives, and gather as a community to experience the power of Mother Church.