Jini Tanenhaus
Artist / Healer
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The artwork depicted on this site represents aspects of my own personal journey. The headdresses are part of a series entitled Banished Deities. They are made from recycled and new elements and can all be worn. They represent outcasts, seekers, visionaries and rebels, those that took a stand and did not follow the dominant cultural norms, but forged their own path, sometimes at a high personal cost. Wearing them or viewing them is meant to take you to their world, their time, their place, to take on their persona. As I made each one, I found them to be connected to each other as a tribe. I wanted to create a home for them, a refuge, and that lead to creating a series of Shrines. The Transformation Box is a place to put all our collective hopes and dreams for healing. As part of my study of Thanatology, I created a piece to embrace the inevitability of death and constructed a visual representation of a “good death” for myself with the realization that death is not something you can control. I’ve created my own folk saints who I relate to as my higher self, my guides. In “Shrine to Tantrums”, I wanted to elevate the tantrums I had as a child, a behavior that was labeled as “crazy” to a positive assertion of my own reality. In “Someday My Prince Will Come”, I am trying to bust the myth that manipulated my life for so many years. In my life and in my art, I want to free myself of the limiting myths and fairytales I’ve been raised to believe in so that I can have a life of my own creation.
Pray for Us
Mixed media, cast hands
The Illuminating Urge To Be
Embroidery
Inner Piece.jpg
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