Miriam Sagan is a writer, and the author of over 40 books, including the utopian novella Commune of the Golden Sun. Isabel Winson-Sagan works in a variety of mediums, including installation, printmaking/book arts, photography, and new media. She often shows her work in feminist shows and venues, such as Revolt Gallery in Taos, NM, WomensWork.Art gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY, and Women Made Gallery in Chicago, IL. Together they are a mother daughter team working as Maternal Mitochondria. Since 2014 they have been creating in venues ranging from the Herekeke studio on Lama Mountain north of Taos, New Mexico to SIM house in Reykjavik, Iceland. They also completed a months residency and installation in a grain silo at Kura Studios, Japan. Their works include a chapbook, Spilled Ink (poetry, suminagashi, photography), and an e-book of photography and poetry, Swimming in Reykjavik (The Moon Press). A video installation of theirs, “What We Wrote on the Water,” was open to the public through Vital Spaces during the pandemic. Their ghost story, Homeless Ranch/Threshold Anxiety, in prose and photography is featured in Ninth Letter. They maintain a poetry and recycled metal sculpture pathway at Santa Fe Skies RV Park and share a studio in Santa Fe.
Suminagashi Technique
Maternal Mitochondria often uses a technique called “suminagashi,” so here is a little description of what suminagashi entails:
Suminagashi, or “spilled ink,” is the art of traditional Japanese marbling. The effect is beautiful, but it is also a meditative practice to quiet and focus the mind. It is composed by allowing a basin of water to still, and then adding ink to the water. The ink can be traditional calligraphy ink, or more modern ones such as oils. The pattern is composed by adding drops of ink within each other. As they expand, they create the traditional fractal look of mountains and rivers, or coastlines. The pattern can then be manipulated by blowing on it, using a brush, or even a hair to gently move it. It is said that a master of suminagashi has only a small amount of control over the outcome.
