Mary Heebner

represented by The Loft Galeria

The Vessel series is called UNEARTHED. It is one of the four bodies of work that came from two trips, on horseback and in Zodiacs, across the mountains and into the fjords of Chilean Patagonia. We stayed in a remarkable hotel designed by Chilean architect German del Sol. 30' trapezoidal windows overlooking Last Hope Sound. Its spare decor included his collection of ancient Mapuche vessels. I was struck by the large earthen forms, but what really touched me was when on closer inspection you could see trace fingerprints, markings of human hands that made the vessels a thousand years ago. This series is in direct relation to Below and Beneath, in which a stratified 'landscape' shows what I imagined beneath the surface, where I include vessel and fossil forms.

Patagonia: Unearthed

The earth is a vessel, containing everything,
even what is only dreamed or unbuilt.
The lips of the vessel are the ridges of mountains,
its belly is blackened by fire, soothed by rain,
burnished from being touched, used, broken.
The vessel vibrates like an old yellowed soul, vivid, terrible, oracular.

The myths are true. We are made of clay – water and mineral.
We are vessels, formed from the inside out, and the outside in.
The ragged unseen interior supports the softened outer glaze.
In between them, some unnamable force
works the wet walls of our desire, pressing
the coiled hunger and longing into beautiful and transitory forms.


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