Roslyn Rosenfeld - August 1990
Curator's Statement

Carol Taylor's images take us back beyond patriarchy to that earlier world ordered according to matriarchal principals. Maternity has always been obvious. Paternity, on the other hand, was not understood until civilization was well advanced. From that earlier vantage point, the mother was the archetypal source of life, and primitive religions the world over cast their creation myths in female terms. Even the swirling chaos that preceded form was female in character- the primordial womb. The earth itself has always been understood as woman - Mother Earth. Life springs from it, nourished by it, and returns to it. This cyclic process was embodied as a triple goddess known through myths of Indian, Arabian, Egyptian, Aegean and Mediterranean cultures, and among Celtic and Teutonic peoples of northern Europe. Her three aspects were those of Virgin, Mother and Crone or alternatively, Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. The Virgin and Mother we know. The latter was a black faced goddess of death who recalled all creatures back to herself that the cycle might continue. These archetypes became individualized into myriad personae. There have been goddesses of the mountains and the seas. The moon and the Milky Way, harvest and hunt, healing and disease, love, fate, justice, wisdom, mathematics, oral history. The list is long. Some feminist thought makes the case that patriarchal religions, in seeking to vanquish death, also vanquished the cyclic or matriarchal religions that encompassed death*. And as patriarchal systems gained ascendency, goddesses and their powers were appropriated, transformed or devalued and largely lost to consciousness. We learn of them today with some surprise.

Yet the images still hold great power.

Remarkably, Taylor's images came not from any reading of the myths themselves. (In fact that came later.) Rather they evolved with a kind of inner necessity as the artist worked through her many series of female studies. They are her truths. Yet they are universal truths. They speak today, as they did in earlier times, of woman's strength and resilience, a courage capable of ferocity, her capacity to nourish and sustain, her sexuality and fecundity - in short, her power.

The fruitfulness of Creator and Preserver dominates the images of Early Transformations and First Epoch. Those of Racial Memories embody in their monumentality, unfailing and unconditional support. And while the concept of the black-faced goddess was unknown to Taylor as she made the images, her presence is eerily suggested in Salome and the three Black Guardians. The significance of the androgynous nature of the figures in Final Transition is left to the viewer to interpret.

The physicality of their making is appropriate to these figures. (It is no surprise that Taylor works in clay.) Colours are vigorously applied one over the other, then scraped through to establish or elaborate the image. The intentional crudity of method imparts both power and authenticity. Roughly cut collage elements, contribute similarly in the works of First Epoch. The layering of the colours provides a richness and complexity that enhances the vital nature of the images. The immediacy of one's response attests to their primal power.

* Walker, Barbara G. The Crone. San Francisco. Harper & Row. 1985.

Roslyn Rosenfeld: arts writer and independant curator active in New Brunswick over the past fifteen years.