The Red Tepee

Art, from artists all over Australia and overseas will come together in a patchwork liner within the walls of a Red Tepee to create intimate expressions of a womans relationship to her womb
The majestic and earthly form of an 18 foot flame red tepee is an experiential art installation and retreat space celebrating menstruation. It will be lined with a patchwork of art work from 90 women to represent the Universal womb. Lined with 91 depictions (painted and sewn on canvas pieces) it reflects the many faces of a womans relationship to her womb. The Inner lining will offer the viewer an authentic visual experiences of insightful understandings that sisters share as one creation woman. The womb is a creative centre of which women can share a connection beyond the mind, so art offers a great medium to give it expression.

The Red Tepee is a Community Arts Project that empowers women to express their relationship with Bleeding. The Red Tepee harnesses the sacred lore of the tribe through the use of art and storytelling. The Red Tepee will create the same simple power of personal understanding and in this simple form of exchange. The Red tepee is reclaiming the tradition of the Red Tent as a retreat space for women while bleeding. Celebrating womens cycle, fertility, and feminine nature, empower women to be equal, as a woman, rather than by a masculine paradigm of power thus humanity regains natural order and balance between the sexes. It also celebrates the innate relationship women have with the earth and moon in their physical relationship with creation. A woman bleeds with the 28.5 day cycle with the moon, and is able to create new life from within their body.

InformEmotion initiated the project Bleeding Art - Bleeding Heart, which utilises the modality of art therapy to explore the process of menstruation, from which the Red Tepee Project was born. The vision is to offer a safe and powerful forum for girls approaching menache, their first bleed, to be initiated into experience the intimate and venerable reflections of women in a deeply authentic way within a womans circle.

Art work is a wonderful language to offer other women and girls an understanding of what it means to be woman. The red tepee will generate a network of support based on connectedness, promoting togetherness rather than separation and competitiveness. It symbolises one-woman, that is all women being one, as we are reflections and parts of a whole united she; the feminine energy manifest on earth. The liner will consist of individually created patches sewn together. It echoes the modern tradition of quilt making that has been used as a political, cultural and personal statement for other highly emotive topics. These include; The Safe Motherhood Quilt co-ordinated by Inna May Gaskin http://rememberthemothers.org/ and The Birth Rites Quilt co-ordinated by Seneka Cohenhttp://birthquilt.com/ as well as The AIDS Quilt - http://www.aidsquilt.org/. This art form has brought media attention and sparked social debate which enables impactful personal exchange.

The first part of the project involved creating the funds through the pozible.com crowd funding to, invite the artists and distribute canvas pieces and to raise money to purchase a Red Tepee The artists are currently creating their visions of their womb story onto their canvas pieces

Sue and Don from Gentle Earth Walking tipis in Daylesford, Victoria is helping make this vision a living reality by supporting us to make the tepee that will house the art work.
http://www.gentleearthwalking.com.au/tipidon/tipidon.ht ml

The second phase of the tepee will exhibit the art work so that it is acknowledged as an art piece in its own right. It will travel festivals and markets. These are some of the images that will adorn the lining of the Red Tepee that have been received thus far.

The third phase will use the Red Tepee as a Menstrual Retreat women to support one another to take time to retreat from the world into the red tepee to honour their inner process and bleeding womb letting go physically and emotionally while letting their blood spill naturally back to the earth to regenerate the great mother. This will imbue the space with the ritual of honouring self and the earth.

The fourth phase of the project is to use the tepee for workshops. The tepee will create a space for girls and women to explore their emotional selves and receive tools to help them understand the connection between their emotions and physical bodies. At a time when girls are feeling selfconscious and often emotionally timid whilst undergoing social and physical changes, art can offer a 3

wordless exchange and a process for empowerment and understanding. Images can offer powerful hooks in our memory when there is something we relate to within it. This creates a safe environment to take on information gently, build new identity and also tools that can equip intrapersonal growth and ongoing wellness.

I am Michelle Buggy, founder of InformEmotion and the Bleeding art Bleeding heart Project, birthing the Red Tepee Project. I am an Artist (BA (Fine Arts), Art therapist (- MA (Research) Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy, Grad. Dip Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy), trained birth attendant (with Rhea Dempsey Birthing Wisdom) and trainer (Cert IV). But primarily I am a mother of five beautiful children and a wife of a gorgeous supportive man. I created daily journal drawings during my five pregnancies to reflect and embody my experience to honour and integrate my internal and external experience. I believe in the importance of Rites of Passage that enable an integration of meaning that can validate and inform the human experience of change. I have worked with women with art therapy as they journey their pregnancy and changing experience with motherhood. I am passionate about joining women together to express the power of our creative bodies that will move women and girls to feel their connection to menstruation using art as a process.

Please contact me if you wish to support the project further or host it in your community. Michelle Buggy , email; informemotion@gmail.com

I would love to invite you to visit; http://www.birthingartbirthingheart.com/bleeding-heart-bleeding-art.html https://www.facebook.com/Bleedingartbleedingheart.com/ http://pozible.com/bleedingartbleedingheart A Red Tepee website will be out before the end of November 4

And a Red Tepee Website will soon be up to view the complete collection of art (Please note the art work shown is this article is work that had been received when I was submitting this article it is not bias or selected)

Blessed be