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Artist achieves personal healing through evening People celebrate their 50th birthday in many different ways. Julia Bittle, a Geneseo artist, celebrated her 50th birthday with a performance art work that beautifully interprets the challenges and difficulties of life and how the necessary stages of suffering and healing is really a journey to wholeness. Bittle’s installation is called Regneration: A Show of Hands. In three appearances at the Big Springs Museum in Caledonia, it drew over 140 people. Bittle conceived and created a three dimensional "show of hands" shimmery tree reaching more than seven feet tall and symbolizing her own life’s journey. It features wire mesh hands sprinkled with hanging teardrops. The inspiration for the piece is an ancient story called The Handless Maiden from the book, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. "In a sense, this is a self portrait, the installation is about personal transformation and healing,"Bittle explained. Storyteller Leah Ruekberg joined the artist on the project, telling the story of the Handless Maiden. Musician Dan Fitzpatrick performed the music for the performance on an instrument called a Chapman Stick, an electric stringed instrument in the guitar family. Bittle had worked with Reukberg a few years ago on a project that the two performed at the Lederer Gallery on the SUNY Geneseo campus. As she developed ideas for the show of hands piece, she asked Reukberg to tell the story for the opening exhibit. "I was amazed to learn that she had been studying this story for 19 years and had always wanted to do something with it. She brought the story to life. I had heard Dan play the stick in his studio and there was no question in my mind that he would be the perfect musician for this piece. Dan, Leah and I have forged a flowing and beautiful connection," Bittle said. This was Bittle’s first time at creating a three-dimensional art piece. She conferred with other artists and arrived at the idea to create an actual tree. She started with a cherry tree that a friend had recently cut down. A friend, Christie Foor, helped Bittle wrap every branch in wire so they could be easily positioned to hold sparkling plastic pieces cut from plastic bottles and the wire mesh hands. Bittle wanted the tree to be shimmery so she spray painted it gold and silver. Every aspect of tree represents a piece of symbolism in the story. "Hands touch and heal, comfort, shower divine light, hope and pray… and they also receive all of this. They communicate deep, tender and loving feeling without words," Bittle remarked. "The hands, palms out, say…here am I."
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