Unwrapping the Ribbons Flag

Wall hanging painted flag made of fabric, bullion and wood measuring 26" x 20". This piece measures a total of 35" long with tassels when hanging from golden cord hanger. The emergent initiate, unwrapping the blindfold ribbon and removing the coin offerings, returned by Charon as the crossing to death was foiled. The torch of knowledge is held above. Flag found behind false wall along with eight other pictorial banners rolled and bundled in oil cloth, bound with decorative cord. The banners each feature a hand-painted symbolic image, generally an emblem set against a classical landscape. The collection of images most likely represent stages in the progression of a suppliant, one who respectfully approaches and entreats a god at their shrine or temple, toward enlightenment. The mystery cults of late antiquity such as the Eleusinian Mysteries embrace this journey of purification, supplication through offerings and sacrifices, ritual practices shrouded in secrecy, plunging into darkness and ultimately emerging in the light of knowledge. These banners likely served to focus the suppliant group or individual on progress made and the task at hand, hung at both spatial and time intervals. THE FRATERNAL SOCIETY OF SUPPLIANTS TO TROPHONIOS(F.S.O.S.T.) This mock exhibition is part of a collaborative, surrealist imagining built around some paintings by artist John Griswold, retroactively seeking a plausible context for the particularly odd imagery beginning to gel around a theme - his memories of encountering a little known ancient Greek site described by the Roman travel writer Pausanias as an undergraduate in Art History. After writing a term paper on the Oracle of Trophonios in Levadea, John recalled actually stumbling onto the overgrown location of the oracular cave during a travel break when working as an assistant to an archacological conservator in Greece that summer. This serendipitous encounter has shaped his artistic interest for decades. In an experimental move to start working on a larger scale than the intimately detailed, small panels typical of his oeuvre, John returned to working on "canvas", experimenting with different formats and textures of fabric weave. Seeking a surface similar to fine "portrait linen" popular starting in the early 19th century in Neoclassically obsessed northern Europe, he turned to modern synthetic equivalents, stretched tightly over a rigid board to give him the familiar "feel" of painting on panel. Pleased with the results, but enamored of the flexible nature of the painting when released from the board, John struck on the idea of adhering the thin painted fabric to another piece for support. He immediately thought of the processional and ceremonial banners in his own collection of 19th century Fraternal society paraphernalia. The new paintings became instant artifacts - but without a context. When his longtime friends at Goldbug showed him the highly evocative back storage room at their new location in this 1911 brick building, ideas started flowing around the already magical feeling the exposed brickwork and structural wooden beams, and Theodora Coleman's plans for transforming the space to host small events. Then the "what if" moment occurred - what if there had met, in that space long ago, a secret Fraternal society that sought to emulate the mysterious activities at the Cave of Trophonios? What if a cache of artifacts were discovered that gave a glimpse into their inner workings? What if that cache had been found before and re-hidden, but not before being subjected to scholarly investigation? What would that journal article reveal? View the entire collection of F.S.O.S.T. artifacts available in the John Griswold collection.