"Fire Temple Shrine”

DIMENSIONS: 18” square; with roof, 32” high.

Materials and techniques: Materials include: antique Indian mirrored and embroidered fabric, dupioni silks, beads, dangling trims, ribbons, sequined trims, specialty sheer fabrics for the roof, ornamental metallic threads, and a Japanese hand-knotted bird ornament. Techniques include embroidery, beadwork, couching, and quilting.

The outsides of three of the walls are made of antique embroidered and mirrored Indian fabric; doorways are edged in with gold sequin trims. The insides of the same three walls are silk, quilted with flame-like designs to batting and then hand beaded. The insides and outsides are ironed to stiff doubled-sided Pellon to form the walls. Stiff metal rods support the sides and the frames of the doors. The floor has a sri yantra mandala embroidered on it with decorative gold thread; the inside back wall has a flame appliquéd and trapuntoed inside an upward-pointing triangle inside a circle, surrounded by a quilted sun-sign. The outside back wall has an Indian beaded and embroidered triangle appliquéd onto silk The roof is made of triangles framed with metal rods and covered with layers of beaded wire material and sheer red metallic fabric, trimmed with ribbon.

The shrine can be folded up: the top lifts off and folds into four triangles; the four walls detach from the base and fold flat.

THE INSPIRATION AND INTENTION: It came to me in meditation to make shrines for each of the four “inner temples” linked to the four directions. The first is the Fire Temple shrine. The upward facing triangle symbolizes fire. The silk floor of the temple is embroidered with gold thread to form a sri yantra mandala: the seed pattern of the universe, according to Hindu tradition, composed of interlocking triangles, five facing down and four up, representing the masculine and feminine energies of the universe. Three side walls are covered on the inside with silk, quilted embroidered triangle patterns, and hand-sewn beads; the doorways are covered with sequins and crocheted trim. The inside of the fourth wall (the back wall) has an embroidered triangle surrounded by a trapuntoed sun sign; bursting out from the triangle is a silk flame. The outside of that wall is decorated with antique Indian mirrored fabric and appliquéd trim.

Fire: a powerful, transformative force of destruction and creation. The phoenix on top of the shrine is a reminder that out of the ashes, new life arises.

Juried into the 2008 "Red Dominant" show at The Art Center at Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos, NM.