Holy Water, 1995

Built during a Senior Fulbright Research Grant in Java and Bali, Indonesia. This piece is dedicated to the water blessed by Hindu priests in elaborate ceremonies on the island of Bali.

This wall piece holds a kropak, a carved wooden box for the Lontar palm leaf books, and a small ceramic vessel for blessed water found washed up on the beach. On the sculpture are four photographs, two taken at a sacred lake in the mountains of Bali where animals are sacrificed to the water, another of an umbrella-covered shrine dedicated to a waterfall, and the fourth a sacred spring with a statute of Ganesh, an elephant-headed deity who diminishes obstacles.

28" x 10" x 7"