Maria Molteni: Heart of Stone
Heart of Stone builds upon an ongoing project called Counting to Infinity (Contando all鈥橧nfinito) and a body of work called Beautiful Seven (Settebello). Both gather around a set of fifty found stones and hand drawings which cradle their forms. Colored fingers reflect Molteni鈥檚 childhood habit of counting Hail Marys on their hands, like decades of Rosary prayer beads. Sibilline Books of Cumae speak of Cibele, a large black meteorite stolen from Phrygia by Romans when they learned of the great mountain mother鈥檚 rock form. Biblical excerpts coax the human heart away from the earth and toward a purified 鈥渇lesh鈥�. Meanwhile, the animistic world, by which shells, lagoons, mountains, comets and stars are alive and pulsing, observes the heart of stone. When counting beads and beats, bodies reunite with the rhythms of heaven and earth. Through this lens Molteni exercises what they call Celestial Antiphony, a call-and-response relationship with the divine.
This work began serendipitously on the Great Solar Eclipse of 2017, when Molteni found their first Italian playing card on the floor of the Adriatic Sea. The work connects Molteni鈥檚 original deck of playing + divination cards and the popular Italian card game Scopa (meaning 鈥渂room鈥�) to their avid interest in the Pleiades star cluster, global Seven Sisters mythologies, and a solo pilgrimage to seven Marian miracle sites sacred to the mountainous region of Campania.
The term Settebello literally means 鈥渂eautiful seven鈥�, naming the luckiest card in the game of Scopa. Stelle Scopa adapts language used by ancient astronomers to describe comets as 鈥渂room stars鈥� or 鈥渟weeping stars鈥�. The imagery in Molteni鈥檚 deck incorporates their hand drawings, Italian stone iconography, and the fifty 鈥渂eads鈥� from a terrestrial Rosary. Stelle Scopa departs slightly from tradition to include five suits, with the planets Mercury, Mars and Venus in place of typical Court cards. A set of eleven asteroids serve as the deck鈥檚 鈥淢ajor Arcana鈥�. Sixty-one total cards equals the full number of beads on a traditional Rosary. Shuffling, cutting, and handling the deck evokes sacred stone collecting as bead and body-based prayer. Card table altar arrangements, hand rolled rose beads, video performance set to sounds of the Moon and Venus, seven portal-like grottos, cast hands modeled after Madonna statuary, and handcrafted brooms further explore themes of queerness and cosmic cycles.
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Heart of Stone builds upon an ongoing project called Counting to Infinity (Contando all鈥橧nfinito) and a body of work called Beautiful Seven (Settebello). Both gather around a set of fifty found stones and hand drawings which cradle their forms. Colored fingers reflect Molteni鈥檚 childhood habit of counting Hail Marys on their hands, like decades of Rosary prayer beads. Sibilline Books of Cumae speak of Cibele, a large black meteorite stolen from Phrygia by Romans when they learned of the great mountain mother鈥檚 rock form. Biblical excerpts coax the human heart away from the earth and toward a purified 鈥渇lesh鈥�. Meanwhile, the animistic world, by which shells, lagoons, mountains, comets and stars are alive and pulsing, observes the heart of stone. When counting beads and beats, bodies reunite with the rhythms of heaven and earth. Through this lens Molteni exercises what they call Celestial Antiphony, a call-and-response relationship with the divine.
This work began serendipitously on the Great Solar Eclipse of 2017, when Molteni found their first Italian playing card on the floor of the Adriatic Sea. The work connects Molteni鈥檚 original deck of playing + divination cards and the popular Italian card game Scopa (meaning 鈥渂room鈥�) to their avid interest in the Pleiades star cluster, global Seven Sisters mythologies, and a solo pilgrimage to seven Marian miracle sites sacred to the mountainous region of Campania.
The term Settebello literally means 鈥渂eautiful seven鈥�, naming the luckiest card in the game of Scopa. Stelle Scopa adapts language used by ancient astronomers to describe comets as 鈥渂room stars鈥� or 鈥渟weeping stars鈥�. The imagery in Molteni鈥檚 deck incorporates their hand drawings, Italian stone iconography, and the fifty 鈥渂eads鈥� from a terrestrial Rosary. Stelle Scopa departs slightly from tradition to include five suits, with the planets Mercury, Mars and Venus in place of typical Court cards. A set of eleven asteroids serve as the deck鈥檚 鈥淢ajor Arcana鈥�. Sixty-one total cards equals the full number of beads on a traditional Rosary. Shuffling, cutting, and handling the deck evokes sacred stone collecting as bead and body-based prayer. Card table altar arrangements, hand rolled rose beads, video performance set to sounds of the Moon and Venus, seven portal-like grottos, cast hands modeled after Madonna statuary, and handcrafted brooms further explore themes of queerness and cosmic cycles.
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