Forgive me and forget me as quickly as you can. I am leaving you forever. Do not search for me—this would be useless. I have become a witch from all the trials and tribulations that befell me. Time to go. Farewell.
—The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

When thinking of social relationships between women, and then further considering the additional intensity of artistic relationships within the complex workings of female relationships, I can see why people would be afraid of a trio of women artists. Women are scary! They gnash and claw and occasionally curse people. I never see men standing around in groups, giving people the "evil eye" (a trick employed by old witches) or going to the bathroom in threes. Women have a bad reputation for being evil. Is this because we ARE evil? Or because we have so long have been perceived so? Women are seducers, enchanters, witches, sirens, etc. We have the power of "the eye"–that thing so many historical paintings are obsessed with–the ability to hold a man captive with a stare and then abandon him to cursedness. Is this simply desire, or do women actually hold a mystical power?

For hundreds of years persecutions of individuals (mostly women) were a convenient way to dispose of those who were strong-willed and weird or who strayed too far from the path of righteousness in a society dominated by fear and religion. It wasn't until 1951 that laws in the UK specifically condemning witchcraft were finally repealed, which were then replaced by something called the "Fraudulent Mediums Act." As animated by the film Haxan (originally made in the 1920s and then later given a strange new voiceover in the 1960s by William S. Burroughs) "witchcraft" was a label used to blame death and misfortune on the actions of odd individuals rather than on natural occurrences. This movie portrays little old ladies running off into the woods at night to kiss devil's asses and frolic around naked. This may or may not lead one to reflect on how artists differ. What are artists after all but strong-willed and strange individuals who like to experiment with philosophy, visual sense, human perception, and even occasionally make things with dead animals and strange brews, and run around naked in the woods?

Witches are a popular theme in literature and cinema in general, but what I am concerned with is the trio–or "coven"–of witches. Macbeth encountered three witches (also known as "The Weird Sisters") who warned him of impending doom, Dario Argento made films about a mysterious group of "the three mothers"–most notably Susperia and Inferno, (the film about the third witch was never realized). One can also find the trio of sexy, ghouls and ghosties in the TV series Charmed, as well as my favorite (by reason of this article ONLY!)–the book by John Updike that was later turned into a movie starring Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer–The Witches of Eastwick...

To elaborate on my connection between witches and artistic collaboration, I must divulge that my interest stems from, or perhaps directly inspired the creation of the un-heavenly triad of power completed by Claudia Mendoza, Maggie Foster, and myself. Our artistic, witchy collaboration began over a mutual obsession for dark films, and was fueled by a somewhat eerie notion lent to our artistic practice. It was the films of Dario Argento that united us, the three of us watching his films in dark rooms with beers in hands, and especially one particularly strange feature of his, the film The Stendhal Syndrome, upon which we devised our first project–created by, produced by and featuring all three of us. Although the resulting video was not particularly "witchy," it did possess elements of the darkly comic and the phenomenal-themes each one of us already had an affinity for. Had we lived during the 18th century or earlier, we would have assuredly been accused of being witches (and most likely would have ended up being thrown in a lake or crisped on a stake.) Here I state some of the reasons our work may have led to our demise had it been executed any time before the 21st century:

There is Claudia Mendoza, who tends to hide small secrets in corners and drawers in dimly lit spaces. She has a tendency to hide bits of hair and secret tokens in light fixtures while lengths of string magically pursue her...

Then there is Maggie Foster, who ventures out into the woods where she levitates in Honoré Fragonard-esque backgrounds and makes the foliage shake. She also has the ability to invoke tears through song...

Then there is myself–obsessed with a thing called "the void"–the space where all things intangible can be absorbed and devices or contraptions of any kind can alter or inform human visual perception...

And yes... there is also the collaboration that started it all. It was while we were watching the film Stendhal Syndrome when we probably had our first moment together as artists (in a very analytical sense). We were presented with this scene–of a woman in a dark corner with only her eyes illuminated by a light that shone through a small break in the wall. It became a moment to which we all related. After this I don't think the rest of the film was as important. Each one of us suddenly came to the conclusion (in a moment of collective consciousness) that there was art was to be made based on the understanding of this one moment in this film. Much conversation ensued over this scene–none of which I can clearly remember–except the fact that a project was born between three artists who were before simply casual acquaintances. It was the birth of our collaboration together. We were all fascinated by this scene of a woman with only her eyes lit by a strip of light, as she went through a range of emotions–from happy, to sad, to neurotic, to mad–all with only her eyes–the eyes being the most prominent of the senses involved in the creation and experience of art.