i’ve spent half of this year making a major body of work, both visual art, in the form of mixed media paintings + poetic invocations to accompany the paintings.
hope talismans.
sixteen paintings + poems that, in short, invoke + amplify + anchor hope, giving you, me, all of us, the opportunity to inhabit hope in good + enduring ways.
and, once the work was done, a book was created to give these pieces a good home.
for years, i’ve made pieces called hope cosmograms, inspired, in part, by the dikenga of the Kongo + the vèvè of Haitian Vodou + Olókun’s eze ame, drawn in white chalk called orhue.
a cosmogram is a map of a universe + a telling, an invocation, of how things function in that universe + an embodiment of that universe itself.
how we get there.
how we navigate when we’re there.
how we inhabit that place in good ways.
these pieces began as a response to the difficulties people around the world were facing.
the pandemic + the bleak political landscape + the increase of widespread hate + death + grief + a world where being a human, too often, feels like too much.
i also began making these in response to my own heavy things.
profound physical pain for years on end + a surgery that nearly killed me + a relationship that broke me + extended illness that left me mostly sure i’d be dead before that year was over.
hope seemed to be both in short supply + deeply, profoundly, needed.
for all of us.
so, i painted a talisman i called hope cosmogram, which turned into a series of these talismanic maps to / for / through hope.
the response to these pieces was good + enormous.
it felt like there was a craving for this talismanic resonance with, transmission of, hope.
given all the world was struggling with, that was no surprise.
after the death of one of my dearest friends in late 2022, i felt desolate, as human, as artist. i didn’t paint anything that mattered for a couple years, until starting this work earlier this year.
carrying grief takes time, space.
when listening to the spirit{s} behind my art, i knew i’d do a series of hope cosmograms, hope talismans.
this body of work, comprised of sixteen visual talismans + sixteen related invocations, was born over an intense, focused period of four and a half months, painting or writing nearly everyday with the devotion of river + thunder.
the visual art was painted with casein paint + handmade watercolo{u}rs on heavy paper, using mostly handmade brushes, which was later mounted to gesso boards.
each piece is 8” x 8” / 20.3 cm x 20.3 cm.
like all the pieces i make, every piece in this series is talismanic.
they’re made as literal, actual, highly functional + highly effective talismans.
they were made with ritual components centered in their creation. prayers playing as much a
role as pigment. invocation as key to their creation as composition. every part of these pieces
is medicine.
a good talisman increases our resonance with the medicine the talisman has been consecrated to.
these talismans increase our proximity to + resonance with + capacity for finding, making, inhabiting, sharing hope.
hope in the macro + the micro, the sprawling overview + the everyday, with more focus on the everyday, because, in all i know of hope, that’s the only way we carry it in the overview.
and, while we’re talking about what i know of hope, i know hope as a weighty, tenacious thing.
a spirit with deep, thunderous roots.
vital.
lifted + lifting.
an antidote to even death itself.
i don’t know hope as something fragile or fickle, something of use only to the foolish or naive.
i know hope as the survival instinct of the soul.
i’m still here because of hope.
hope saves lives.
art saves lives.
hope talismans.
who did i make these pieces for?
anyone who needs hope.
more of it.
the ability to believe in it {again}.
the capacity to find it, to inhabit it, to share it.
to feel hope’s nourishment in the bones of your body, in the heavy places in your heart, in the
human hurts that ache in ways that feel like forever, as fuel for the goodness you dream of
building.
the paintings, the poems, the book, these works are spirits.
if you sit with them, talk with them, listen with them, they’ll speak.
in how you feel + in how your move + in how you see yourself + in what you see as possible
on all scales + in your dreams, waking + sleeping + in how you’re wrapped in hope in your
everyday.
these pieces are hope.
a clear embodiment + transmission of it.
that they even exist is confirmation that hope is real, powerful, needed, potent.
i’m grateful to be able to share these hope talismans with you.
printing a book is a big thing.
printing a full colo{u}r fine art book, where the art is reproduced in a way that hono{u}rs the original art, is an even bigger thing.
after seeding so much time + energy into making this work, sharing it in a way that reflects the
art i made was essential to me.
i chose a printer with extensive experience producing fine art books + exhibition catalogues for artists and museums.
there are three ways you can engage these talismans, through two different editions of the book + a limited edition option, which includes fine art prints of all sixteen painted talismans.
standard edition softcover {pictured above}
- 9 x 12 large format
- full colo{u}r
- 16 paintings + 16 invocations
- 80 full colo{u}r photos
- countless hand painted illustrations
- 188 pages
- $55 + $8 US shipping or $28 international shipping
deluxe edition hardcover
- everything in the standard edition
- a new cover specific to this deluxe edition
- gold debossing + a beautiful saffron paper hardcover
- includes the full studio journal i wrote while making the paintings
- 234 pages
- 25 copies available
- $150 + $8 US shipping or $28 international shipping
– sold out –
limited wúrà edition
- everything in the deluxe edition
- signed deluxe hardcover book
- 16 signed + numbered limited edition prints {approx 8″ x 8″ / 20.3 cm x 20.3 cm} of all the painted talismans, professionally printed with archival materials
- original talismanic art hand drawn inside each copy
- a hand painted ìrèké / sugarcane talisman to support invoking + inhabiting hope in good ways
- 16 copies available
- $850 + free worldwide shipping
wúrà means gold in Yorùbá, speaking to the rarity + power + medicine of this limited edition offering.
i decided not to share photos of the deluxe edition hardcover or the rest of the goodness offered in the limited wúrà edition.
in Isese practice, medicine is maintained, in part, by being secreted away.
the potent icons of the spirits in this tradition are often housed inside an Igbá, or calabash, which, aside from being a map of Yorùbá cosmology, functions as a physical + spiritual home for the good spirits that inhabit the icons, the lidded vessel acting to keep the medicines it holds vital + effective.
if you need help checking out or have questions about the book, please reach out to Malyn through the form below. they usually reply to most emails within 2 hours, unless it’s a weekend.
standard editions will ship by the end of nov + the deluxe editions, including the limited wúrà edition, will ship by mid jan.
there will be a free good gathering on 11 jan for everyone who buys the book. we’ll talk about your experience with the talismans + do some group divination through the paintings + poetry around how we find / inhabit hope + i’ll teach some simple ways to engage this art, both paintings + poetry, talismanically.
i’m only able to sign the books that accompany the limited wúrà edition. for ease + speed of getting your books in your hands, the other books are shipped by the printer.
this book is an invocation.
this book is an invitation.
this book is a prayer.
this book is home to spirits who answer prayers.
this book is a transmission.
this book is a talisman.
early {+ unsolicited} praise for hope talismans
“it was such a blessing to be there, see the paintings for the first time and be moved to tears by your art + your invocations. i can’t wait to receive the book.” – Alisha Robinson
“this was|is extraordinary. the art, the poetry, the conversation. listen. i knew this art was going to be really, really good. and. i was entirely unprepared for how transcendent it is. and i don’t use that word carelessly. or ever, really. my soul feels shinier, lighter. thank you for being an artist. what a blessing.” – dre achilleus
“The more time I spend looking at these talismans, the more deeply I fall in love with them. And the invocations are deeply moving. Pure gorgeousness.” – sheri ponzi
“It was a deeply precious gathering. Thank you for all the work and love and devotion and many many layers of medicine you and your collaborators in co-creation poured into all of this art-as-love-and-healing-and lifting.” – Rionach Aiken
“I am so grateful that I could attend, that you created such deep goodness, that our paths crossed (again) this lifetime. thank you dearheart. lovelovelove” – Hatt Kelley
“thank you for important meaning and beauty – we need/the world needs hope & art, always, and this is transportive and healing and brightening on all levels. deep gratitude.” – Lauren Oujiri
“It was so marvelous to share space with this community and feel the deep, beautiful exhale of this art. Each image felt like a pebble of hope dropping into the pool of my body, creating ripples and ripples and even more ripples, gently traveling through the spacetime of us all. Thank you, Fabeku.” – Eirikah Delaunay
“This work helped me to release breaths I didn’t know I was holding. Thank you.” – smt
“I was unable to keep my hands from reaching for the images, the marks and poetry are so profoundly inspiring. Thank you Fabeku for sharing this body of work with the world.” – Jena Owen
