REVEREND SHAW: SLEEP NO MORE

“Bear witness.”

Mixed Media, 2021

3×5 inches, wooden box with gold-painted stencil of the Reverend’s reel-to-reel recorder

In the inside lid of this box is a recreation of the Reverend’s room, insulated with rolled up white towels.

Upon pressing the red X you will hear a recording: an excerpt from Thomas Alfred Spalding, Elizabethan Demonology (In reference to King James’ Demonologie) 

“…English witches had the reputation of being able to go upon the water in egg-shells and cockle-shells, but seem never to have detected any peculiar advantages in the sieve. Not so these Scotch witches. Agnes told the king that she, “with a great many other witches, to the number of two hundreth, all together went to sea, each one in a riddle or cive, and went into the same very substantially, with flagons of wine, making merrie, and drinking by the way in the same riddles or cives, to the kirke of North Barrick in Lowthian, and that after they landed they tooke hands on the lande and daunced a reill or short daunce.” They then opened the graves and took the fingers, toes, and knees of the bodies to make charms.”

Potion Bottles:

  1. Bear Witness: The Rave. In this bottle are those words, “Bear Witness.” In this bottle is black ink for corruption of hotel spirits; mugwort for the line between the natural and supernatural areas of the hotel and where it blurs; black salt for traps, curses and violence; clover for trapped spirits; deer tongue for magic and a mystery waiting to be unraveled; lavender for distrust, false calm, secrets, and disharmony. Sealed with bronze wax and a thistle stamp.
  2. Witches’ Star: Here I wanted to recreate some of the items in the Reverend’s room, and the most typical one to me was the hair and pins supposedly spit up by Christian Shaw when she was bewitched, among other unnatural items. Labeled and made of synthetic hair and straight pins, sealed with bronze wax and a witches’ star stamp.
  3. Leave Now: Hall of mirrors. The words “Leave Now” along with 4 gold mirrors in clear resin. Sealed with bronze wax and a key stamp. Paired with the Reverend’s card instructing the audience to go to Lady Macduff’s hall of mirrors and witness what happens there. The events on the third floor aren’t the main focus of the Reverend’s work, but were definitely still important, and definitely related to the wool and flock metaphors, both for the “lost flock” and as another reference to Fleance in Macbeth.
  4. Telephone calls. Reverend connection with the lobby and the detective agency, sites of activity for the witches and Caroline. This bottle has black salt for perversion of natural order, lilac for realization, the Reverend knowing he is in a time loop. Cedar for revealing truth, vervain for protection from/working against evil or supernatural forces. Black feathers for the ways the witches present themselves in the “ordinary” parts of the hotel such as the ball, the Sanatorium. For me, the phone was the way for the Reverend to exert influence outside his bubble. It both represented his connection to the rest of the hotel, and was the instrument of spreading his message to his “flock.” Sealed with a glass dome and brass findings, and a silver bone tied to the outside with string as a talisman.
  5. Remembrance. This bottle, to me, represented the Reverend himself. Sunflower for knowledge and cataloguing the evidence of the witches to learn their secrets; skullcap for connection to the audience through this cataloguing; bluebell for melancholy and sorrow; heather for solitude; agrimony for fear/paranoia and rue for obsession and regret. Sealed with bronze wax and a rosemary stamp.

Miscellaneous Items:

  1. Brass box: Witches’ salve. The Reverend had said that witches were unable to shed tears, and thus had the salve in order to simulate human emotions, most importantly seen in the lipsync of “Is that all there is?” by Boy Witch. Included is the quote “You remember what St. Sebastian taught us: tears are the absolution of the soul.” This also really reminded me of when the Reverend placed the salve under his own eyes, both seemingly a connection with the witches he was investigating and an admittance that he had lost some part of him during his isolation. Also stamped into the bottom of the brass box is “you must be exhausted,” which the Reverend said at the start of the 1:1 – it is covered by a layer of pearlized resin and a tiny bit of vicks for that smell!
  2. Bible: Obviously, I included the Bible for that wonderful 1:1 scene, also attached is a bible verse and a miniature straight razor to represent the shaving scene. I put these two together to contrast two scenes: one in which the Reverend witnesses an audience’s vulnerability in the 1:1 scene, and the other where he shows extreme vulnerability to the audience himself.
  3. Glass dome with hand: One of the stories that stuck with me from the recordings was the story of a man who disappeared, supposedly taken by witches, and all that was found of him was his hand, bloody in the snow. I know the story was related to the Renfrew witches and Christian Shaw, but that imagery has haunted me ever since (I can’t find any similar historical stories so it must have been created for the show). I included an antique dictionary definition of the word ‘witchery.’
  4. Braided hair: Another catalogued item recorded by the Reverend, and another reference to the shaving scene and the recording where the Reverend says he discovered that witches can bewitch or charm a person if they have a lock of their hair – this is why he has shaved his head and his beard, so he cannot be controlled or manipulated by them.
  5. Resin Crystal: Resin Crystal with crushed eggshells and quote “soon your wool will be white.”

Below is an alternate view of the first and third potion bottles included in the box, better showing the rave scene and the hall of mirrors.