Jesus and Mary Jane
Jesus and Mary Jane series
Throughout the 2000s, I made work to help me make sense of my religious education as a child and youth, which took place in the Midwest during the 1970s-80s. The Jesus and Mary Jane works emerged from another series entitled Improved Postcards. That series consisted of mixed media works -executed one per day -with the goal of improving upon a postcard’s existing theme or idea.
For this work, the underlying postcard read “Baked” from a local coffee spot. The piece had its genesis in two random images I had in the studio at that time -a marijuana field and Jesus at the Last Supper. And the layers of meaning filled in from there.
I grew up attending both traditional churches and those that met in alternative spaces, mostly church members' homes. One aspect that was consistent across these churches was that there was always “coffee fellowship” immediately following the service. The adults would get wired on coffee, the kids would overdose on sweets -cookies and cakes. Everyone would be jacked up on sugar to the max!
The mythologist Joseph Campbell insisted that humans were wired for bliss. The western culture at large, would have the population believe that humans are wired for addiction. We now have a more informed understanding of addiction as a coping mechanism and natural response to living under the pressure of oppressive, white supremacist capitalist structures. One subgroup of that overarching structure is the white church. This institution can operate in the culture to disconnect people from their own inherent nature.
The cannabis field is Nature, Herself. Always in the background and foreground, surrounding us.
When one enters into Her realm, there can be genuine, religious revelatory experience.