The 9 Muses Project is a collective collection of collective work by international artists collectively, devoting one month to one muse for the course of a collective year. 

We will be presenting the works for 9 months of the 12, so the public can see the works we create, all based on inspiration from one particular muse.  The people involved in the collective are:

 Simon Donovan           Jen Urso           Sue Chenoweth    

Gabriela Vargas-Cetina                Jane Ysadora         

    Matthew Watkins            Lilliam Nieves          Isis McElroy           

Julie Rada           Carla Melo               Jeff Falk                 

    Adriana Butoi         Jonathan Hernandez          Iris Atma           

Migdalia Luz Barens-Vera          Grace Daniels         

    Barry Moon             Ivonne Gonzalez          Rafael Navarro         

Michael Bowdidge         Michelle Ponce    Portia Beacham      

    Gavin Russom             Marcelino Quiñonez         

Robert Craig Baum           Gilles Tautin     Christopher Danowski

More description for the ones who like things described:

(Some of the instructions for the artists involved)

From January to December, in 2012, we will be making 9 projects, each one devoted to one of the 9 muses.  The projects will be in the form of video, mediated performance, performance art, live art, digital art, visual art, music, sound art, dance, moving body art, slow body art, still body art, dead body art, reborn body art, etc…I am asking that you participate in ways that you are comfortable (and if you have questions about new ways, we can negotiate them), as well as ways that you are entirely uncomfortable, if you are comfortable with that.  You can come up with work entirely on your own, or we can collaborate.  But you are free to form your own alliances, and collaborate with whomever you choose. 

What I’m asking:

If you agree to be part of this, you are welcome to participate as often, or as selectively, as you want.  Some of you might be driven to create a short work every month on the muse of the month, others might want to work on only one or two muses.

You would create something, in the form/s of your choosing.  It can be a song or a sculpture or a performance, whatever you like.  The only stipulation is that the work be available in digital form, and please understand that this is how the work is likely to be presented.  We’ll spend the next month putting these together for a kind of public presentation in Phoenix (small gallery spaces), as well as creating a web archive of our works.  I will not, in any way, alter your work any further than it will be altered in sending it electronically.  However, once the work is submitted, there will be an accessible link on the website, where the public can have a look at what we’re all doing together.

From these links, we are all encouraged to use work from other artists during the previous months. Like in mixing and re-mixing, signifying and re-presenting.

This is about coalitions and individual vision, and finding ways they can work together (in these times, coalition and vision are more necessary than ever, and we are unusually maladjusted for it).

I will be taking each art assignment to work on invoking and honoring that particular muse for the entire month; through everyday rituals and art actions.  You’re welcome to do the same, if that’s interesting to you.  For some of you, this might be a way of generating new work all the time, and having a supportive creative community in which to make this work.  For others, it’s a chance to meet people.  For all of us, we get to make work that speaks directly to our own sources of inspiration, so it’s just a way of staying connected to the things that keep the bloodstream running swiftly.

There is no budget for any of this, but if we do manage to capture the imagination of the world at large, and large sums of money start flying in our directions, I would recommend that the funds be used toward starting an artistic commune in a warm city somewhere close to the ocean.

Table One (Mesa Primera) Muses under examination:

Greek muses and their Yoruba-Lucumi correspondences:

Calliope-Olokun (Androgynous Orisha of the bottom two-thirds of the ocean, the one who knows all the secrets, and holds all the bones of those who are lost in crossings, Olokun is epic)

Clio-Yewa (Orisha of the bottom of the grave, the worms that eat the dead, the Orisha of decomposition, she holds all the bodies and knows all the stories on the body)

Erato-Oshun (Goddess of love, sweetness, desire, witchy revenge)

Euterpe-Oya (Orisha of the cemetery gate, and the wind and the marketplace, knows the secrets of fire, and knows the songs of the dead because she hears them as they enter the cemetery)

Melpomene-Obba (Orisha of marriage, stable love, the hearth; no one knows tragedy better, longing for an impossible lover is the greatest tragedy)

Polyhymnia-Yemaya (Orisha of the top third of the ocean, the Great Mother, teen goth girl and old woman with a cigar; songs of the tongues of the living on the water of the world)

Terpischore-Yemu (Orisha present at the beginning of the bang; the first dance, the one that started it all)

Thalia-Nana Buruku (Another Orisha who was there at the beginning; comedy is born of tragedy; yemu gave birth to them all but she nurtured them all)

Urania-Ochanla (Female avatar of Obatala, the creator Orisha; present on earth but at home in the heavens, the one who marked, will mark, and is marking the sky)

Love and respect.

C