Running from Oct. 13 through Dec. 12 at the Fairbanks Gallery

Artist talk and reception on Oct. 22 at 4 p.m.

Sympathetic Spells

This exhibit is centered around a series of glass lachrymatories. The term comes from the Latin lacrima (tear) and the suffi x -atory, meaning “pertaining to.” They refer to small vessels often found in Roman and late Greek tombs, thought to have been bottles into which mourners dropped their tears. Emotional tears carry the highest concentration of proteins of any kind, making them heavier, stickier, and slower to fall.

The installation is envisioned as a chamber for grief and spells. It calls upon our ability to cry, framing tears as vessels that hold the weight of grief for vanishing species and fractured ecologies. These contemporary lachrymatories serve as symbolic gestures—holders for tears that activate not only the calming functions of our parasympathetic nervous system but also its wandering potential, inviting spells of deep connection, acts of care, and listening.

BIO

Jessie Rose Vala is an artist working in sculptural ceramics, mixed media, and installation. Her work engages object-making and time-based projects with consideration and development of paradoxical narratives exploring ecofeminism and myth making. Through the use of sculptural materials such as stoneware, glass, brass and neon Vala envisages archaic translations and chimeric worlds inhabited by animal, vegetal and human figures.

Vala exhibits nationally, has received numerous grants and works collaboratively with a multitude of artists. She is currently career faculty at University of Oregon and a member of Well Well Projects in Portland OR.