Ease your pain, if only for awhile, while you transmute. Breathe in the elixir, the delicate scent of myrrh and magic. Death of the ego. Death of the past self. Death of old ways. Death is not an end, but a transmutation. Do you trust us? Then fall into trance. Do you trust us? Then feel your body and your past become weightless in the present moment. Do you trust us?

Chemical Baptism Two: Trance in Myrrh

Summer Wagner

"And still La Loba sings so deeply that the floor of the desert shakes, and as she sings, the wolf opens its eyes, leaps up, and runs away down the canyon.

Somewhere in its running, whether by the speed of its running, or by splashing its way into a river, or by way of a ray of sunlight or moonlight hitting it right in the side, the wolf is suddenly transformed into a laughing woman who runs free toward the horizon.

So it is said that if you wander the desert, and it is near sundown, and you are perhaps a little bit lost, and certainly tired, that you are lucky, for La Loba may take a liking to you and show you something — something of the Soul."

- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women who Run with the Wolves 

La Loba

In-between reality and dream. 

Shot the last day of summer, 2021.

What Happened

Upright: Strength to do difficult things gently, wisdom, confidence in tough choices, protector, coming of age.

Reversed: Not knowing one’s own power, capriciousness, finding the easy way out, killing the inner child too soon.

A woman sits in a prairie of goldenrod just hidden from the view of a neighborhood behind her. She is barefoot and casually dressed, gently engulfing a fawn laying between her legs. Looking to her right, she holds a silver dagger to the throat of the fawn. On her right arm is an infinity tattoo. 

When the violence of a hot midwestern summer begins to cool, the goldenrod flower blooms everywhere, filling the prairies and roadsides with a final ode to the sun. The goldenrod traditionally symbolizes encouragement and growth, but also caution. The woman here is suspended in this moment between seasons, a period I like to think of as  "summer's grace." The summer heat brings incredible forces of life that clash and burn, growth rapidly overlaps, plants fighting for the sun strangle one another, creatures reproduce and most will not survive through the season, for the abundance of life also means the strength of predators.  In this moment, the peak of summer has past and the infinite cycle turns toward the mercy of a cooling atmosphere, towards an inevitable autumn, towards the grace of death. 

VIII. STRENGTH 

Along a river of time, taken January 2022

Meeting Again

Upright: Taking the time to make tough choice wisely, balancing perspectives, trusting the intuition, using  intellect, allowing things to grow before moving too quickly 

Reversed: Impossible decision, becoming stagnant, inability to see past one’s own emotions, neglect, losing one’s self to overgrowth or decay 

A woman stands like a statue on the waters of a swampy lake. At her feet she holds two swords pointing opposite directions. Blindfolded, her gaze aims downwards toward the soft light of seven candles floating with her in the water. 

The swamp has long been considered a viscous place, not suitable for the building and farming required for human comfort. The swamp, characterized by its molding stillness, is also an entity of inherent change. In some regions, it comes and goes with the seasons, but in all swamps there is abundant life in a constant shimmering kaleidoscope of overlapping biodiversity. 

The woman here has a choice to make, a difficult one. Blindfolded, the situation before her is unclear. She is only guided by the vague lights of the seven candles before her. The swords are her intellect, the water her emotions. She must wield both the power of her mind and intuition to make the right choice. Making the choice too soon, she risks not reaping the full benefits of a matured thought process. Taking too long, she risks her options outgrowing her abilities and withering with time. 

Though a decision may seem black or white, keep in mind that there are almost always more paths than it seems. Consider the number seven: the sum of the spiritual number three and material number four. Seven, a prime number. Seven, the number of notes in a scale, the number of days in a week, the number of colors in the rainbow and number of deadly sins. The moon phases last approximately seven days, and a woman’s hormonal cycle follows suit. Seven, the number of variety, distinction, change and abundance. Seven cannot be divided by two, one must remain. 

II. SWORDS

Parody of Remorse 

Exploring the various characters present in an ambiguous subconscious landscape, The Parody of a Tangled Thread considers memory, time and landscape as active handlers in the creation of a self.

The Parody of a Tangled Thread

The desert rain forms with mud and sun to sculpt a bowl, a crater for mixing, combining, and transformation.

The dry wind hides the imprints of the past and writes in her ancient language upon the surface of the sands. When she is finished with her poem, and there is a moment of stillness and balance, and the moon is lost from the sky, one might light a flame at dusk and read the scripture in the sand to call something out of the darkness.

Krasis

Summer Wagner Editions

Every evening between 4:37pm and 7:34pm, at a news station in a small town in Illinois, a man sits in front of a satellite receiver pointing NORTH. She works the night shift and can see him from the window of her office. Sometimes, during her first break, she sits with him to get away from the burning fluorescent lights inside. "What are you waiting for?" she asks one day, "when you sit here and wait?" "I'm not waiting," he responds in a soft voice, "I'm receiving." At 3:47am on July 3rd, the man wakes from a deep sleep drenched in cold sweat. Grabbing nothing but keys, he tumbles out of his trailer and into his truck, taking off for the station. "The time is now," he thinks, "of course it's now, how could I have been asleep?" She is in the office working late, organizing footage of a car wreck that killed four, when she spots him shuffling frantically across the grass, his eyes bloodshot and never blinking looking up toward the vast sky. This is the first time she's ever felt scared of him, and she could tell he was scared of himself. Yet still, some rushing feeling pulls her toward the man, and so she follows. Outside there is a power in the air and its thickening around her, flowing past her like a humid wind and showering over her like a rain of stars. “The Receiver,” she whispers in a daze, referring to the man.  And all at once the wind stops, the essence concentrated into a pearl glowing and floating softly between his palms. He looks at her with a shivering smile and eyes full of tears sparkling by the light of what he received. "What an incredible story" she thinks, and never tells a soul. 


The Reciever

SuperRare

In-between me and it.

Shot in July of 2021. 

Faceless 

Foundation

It’s where dad worked. That big abandoned building on Main Street. They say it’s the biggest abandoned building in the whole United States. It’s so big, it’s where we built machines that build the machines. Anyways, this place built textile machines, and it built me in a way. That sort of thing. A place kind of shapes you. 

I’m standing in front, outside the gates. I’m there for an interview but the whole place is boarded up and falling apart. I feel…soft and swollen. I feel something in my chest, like when you’re about to cry and there’s that tightness and that lump. But the lump gets bigger and bigger and I can feel it coming up my throat until finally this bird, a bluebird, flies out right onto my hand! He’s staring at me and I’m staring at him, little guy. I felt bad for him, you know, being stuck there inside me for so long.

Blue Bird

Like burls on a tree, twisting and gnarled, the vignettes in Midamerican Fever Dream show us the dark beauty of scars, resilience and awkward healing. With the camera, we cut into four characters' inner worlds as they undergo a transformative experience of theatrical self-reflection.

In a fresh and innovative use of transmedia storytelling Midamerican Fever Dream will be released over four 'Waves'. The story will unfold across ten 1/1 NFTs, ten 1/1 physical-only artworks, and a 250 edition Doppelgänger-enabled collection powered by Transient Labs that will bring collectors along for a dynamic and evolving journey with each new Wave. Together, the collection asks questions that pry into the cliches of cultural dogma, the delicate nature of family dynamics, and the quest for personal change in a feverishly normative landscape.

After laying still for too long with your arms folded over your knees and your head tucked into your chest, it burns to move your joints. To finally unfold. 
It’s reckless, I know. To want to be seen. 
Idk.

Bridget's Old Room

Midamerican Fever Dream

***North***: Winter, Sleep, Dream,
Jaw bone, the book, pillar of crystal, cough syrup, dice

Numerology 44

Proof of concept for Midamerican Fever Dream exhibition. 

August 28th, 2024. 

DUST - Proof of Concept 

Midamerican Fever Dream Exhibition Proof of Concepts

A 1/1 English auction and a 250 Doppelgänger edition fixed-price mint.

4 release waves
Editions, 1/1s, Physicals

Summer Wagner (summergwagner)

Summer Wagner (summergwagner)

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