Lilith Easter de Salis Piper

 

JOURNEY OUT OF EDEN

 

Artist statement:

 

THE BOOK OF LIITH is an authorial illustration, a palimpsest of ideas and an expression of my inner feelings of cosmology, womanhood and spirituality. It’s also about the earth, the Celtic origins of my culture and the land and nature. Figuratively it draws on mythological origins of the first woman preceding Eve and her relationship to the Adam and Eve story from The Bible and the Garden of Eden story. Lilith (/ˈlɪlɪθ/; Hebrew: לִילִית‎ Lîlîṯ) is a figure in Jewish mythology, developed earliest in the Babylonian Talmud (3rd to 5th centuries) and was the first woman the original female to equal male (Adam). She is a symbol of femininity yet also portrayed as an evil sexually wanton serpentess.

 

Named Lilith Easter and born in the spring I became fascinated by this story and the book is my way of expressing this. I wanted to visually portray her story in rhythmic imagery. Inspired in some ways by William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job and Edward Burne-Jones’s paintings influenced by Greek and Arthurian legend (from the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth) I also see Lilith and Eve as sisters and in creating the story I wanted to give them a voice that represents the voice in all women. 

 

Sense of place and a bodily connection to the landscape is a key theme and the book reflects the landscapes I grew up within; South West Britain and the Celtic land which has its roots in the La Tène culture in the  Swiss mountains. On day 26 of the book for instance, close to the full moon, I visualise the glacier lakes and rivers that we have bathed in with my cousins whilst walking in the Engadin, as flowing from the womb of the Celtic goddess in the alpine valleys and damp forests that carry the scent of Lilith in the pine scented breeze.

 

The moon calendar in The Book of Lilith is highly significant. Not only is it based on the exact phase of the moon during my birth in April 1999 but also represents the journey of a woman understanding and nurturing her intuition and natural rhythms and the close relation of the monthly cycles of woman. Like the moon she waxes and wanes through the springtime lunar cycle which is also here the month that I was born, a time of new beginnings ‘to open’ and blossom, preparing for the emergence of summer and womanhood. In April 1999 the moon rose full on the 30th of April, birthing the sun, and on the morning of Beltane, the 1st of May, the sun is resurrected. This ancient festival is about casting off the darkness and celebrating the light. It is a time for celebrating fertility, both in the context of our biological functions as well as our own creative energies, the fertility of our creative community.

 

Journey Out of Eden, The Book of Lilith is a hand bound and embossed 40 page concertina book 9” x 6” (230mm x 155mm). It has been printed on the highest quality 320gsm Hahnemühle Fine Art paper and will be released for the Summer of Love exhibition at KUNSTGALERIE CENTRAL ST. MORITZ as a limited of edition of 46 individually unique signed and hand embellished copies.

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