More Than Just Art
Exhibit by Arianna Ruiz

A Brevard College alumna with a BA in Music, Arianna is a lifelong seeker of creativity, sharing her spirit through music, visual art, and teaching. You might hear her performing locally with Petah Iah & the Mind Renewers Band, see her artwork at Penny Lane Exchange, or join one of her nurturing art classes at the Cedar Mountain Canteen or Meraki Escape Retreat.

From childhood, Arianna felt a deep calling to create and to share a part of her soul with the world. Her Diné (commonly known as  Navajo) Native American, Mexican and Aztec heritage flows through everything she makes. This inspiration shows in her all-natural dream catchers crafted to protect, heal, and connect the soul. With her acrylic work, she chooses vibrant colors to express energy, aura, and the unseen vibrations of life. Sustainability is also part of her spiritual practice, as she believes in honoring Mother Earth. By upcycling art materials and encouraging others to do the same, she creates art that respects both people and the planet. Through music, visual art, and teaching, Arianna’s intention is simple: to help others see, feel, and share their own light

Arianna is part of the LGBTQ+ community and is deeply inspired by it.  A portion of her works on display pays tribute to the pride and love she feels around her self-discovery journey with her identity. Each piece is inspired by the struggles, growths, and strengths that she faced.

Medicine (or protection) pouches, more than just art:

These pouches, or jish, crafted from deer hide, are filled with sage, sweetgrass, tobacco, and a quartz crystal, bearing the medicine wheel on the front and the protection arrows inside the pouch itself, and are blessed by Arianna. The purpose of the jish is to guard one’s spirit from sickness, negative spirits, or any harm that could come to them, while helping to maintain balance between the spirit world and this world while they wear it. You may also choose to hang it above your bed.  Much like a dreamcatcher, it can protect against negative energy when you travel in the dream world. Arianna, raised in Shamanic Diné practices, was given the message from her ancestor, that now more than ever the world is in need of protection.

The medicine wheel is a powerful symbol found throughout Native cultures.  It is used by many Native American tribes as a source of health, healing and protection, often embodies the four directions along with Father Sky, Mother Earth, and Spirit Tree.  For the Diné medicine wheel, the colors are: North is White, East is Yellow, South is Red, and West is Black.  The four directions can have different meanings attributed to them, such as: Four Stages of Life (birth, childhood, adulthood, death), Four Seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter), Four Elements of Life (Fire, Air, Water, Earth), Four Animals (Buffalo, Eagle, Hawk, Bear), or Four Ceremonial Plants (Tobacco, Sweetgrass, Sage, Cedar).  The medicine wheel represents life in balance and holds protection in that.

The Prophecy of the Black Wolf

This is Arianna’s interpretation of the “end of times” Native American prophecy of the black wolf.

According to Indigenous prophecies, when the black wolf is seen crossing the south river, our sky brothers (aliens) will come in clay saucers from the sky and they will redeem the stolen lands to the fathers of our land, the original peoples.

Native Americans were told by the Great Spirit of the coming of the colonizers and the end of their culture, but that one day the land would be returned back to them, through the sky brothers, and until then the spirits of the damned would haunt the streets of the new world that destroyed theirs, this is why the modern world feels the way it does today, off putting, dark and corrupted.