"Where We Gather" 2025

Haley Hoffer

Where We Gather, Summer - 2025.

Performance

 

This altar holds space for what is given and what is received, what is seen and what remains unseen. It’s a closing ceremony created through connection. Though listening with other senses besides ears. 

It is both a culmination and a beginning. It reflects a body of work shaped by synchronicity, dreams, and ritual, created to hold space for connection, reflection, and shared stories. Everything was chosen with care to honor unseen layers of meaning.

The spiral and circle appear throughout as reminders of growth, inner journeys, and collective unity. The elemental Ge-Ode Be-ings embody Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Ether, and Shadow, each one honoring our complexity and the parts of ourselves we sometimes hide. The 7 Bioenergy Bears represent 7 chakras: Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Third-Eye and Crown. 

Viewers are invited to engage, whether by placing a wish rock, taking a sticker, or simply feeling. 

The intention is for us as be-ings to show up as we are, together.

 

Haley Hoffer

Elemental Ge-Ode Be-Ings, Summer - 2025.

Resin and Mixed Medium

 

I created a Ge-Ode Be-Ing series, something that represents honoring our lives, all of us, everything we embody. I found an old sketch and after a meeting with my artist mentor, I had a dream that night of the image being molded in 3D and my artist mentor standing in the background. 

I started to sculpt it out of clays, I used my body as a reference in multiple photos and sketched them out. I then decided to ground the object by making the hands crystals, it was a shortcut I was willing to take. I didn’t feel confident in my ability to do hands that small and making the mold properly.

 

I still messed up on the mold by forgetting to put mold keys, so the registration line is off but I actually enjoy how it looks. I used alcohol ink and resin to cast the first one like fire and to match what I saw in my dream. I loved how it turned out and I wanted to cast more. 

 

I asked for guidance again and in this dream I saw my son holding a picture frame that held a textured resin picture of a sunrise. When I woke up I digitally sketched it and started to recreate it using resin, sand, and cotton. 

 

This is how the elements were born, I stared at this finished product and the idea hit me.. To put each element individually into the molds… At first it was: Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Ether

 

One night a friend came over and I wanted to show them the be-ings so far and I placed them in a circle. I had another a-ha moment, that's when I knew I could do a 6 pointed star, like the merkabah, also representing the heart chakra. I wasn’t sure what the 6th one would be.. 

 

As I was working on a painting of Hedy Lamarr I was using  broken mirror pieces for the stars. It reminded me of an event I modeled for where I represented myself, as a sexual abuse survivor. From that event I have created a series of work with the theme: black, gold and broken mirror pieces, a concept that reminds me of kintsugi and transmuting our pain through art. 

 

That moment I started filling a mold with broken mirror pieces and worked on it immediately, the very last one I finished was sky, the cotton one because I was nervous about the technique but I feel it was symbolic I had to literally face my own shadows.. Which is what I titled the last element. Shadow. 

 

Haley Hoffer

Wick Woman, Summer - 2025.

Wood and Resin

Represented the wick of a candle during a personal ritual. 

 

Starting from the beginning, I desired to create Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and transformation. I first crafted an earthwork that resembled a female torso and lungs from above. I then tried to mold her in the middle of the earthwork as a candle to burn. The mold failed and the candle broke, so I used the candle in a personal ritual for guidance. While I stared at the flame is when I noticed her outline. I then decided to carve her out of wood and to make resin flames surrounding her. To try and mimic what I saw

 

Haley Hoffer

Altar, Summer - 2025.

Mixed Medium

 

Clock Altar 

This all was born because I had the initial idea to use books and put fabric over it but then my artist mentor made  a comment about the fabric not having my touch and I felt that in my soul because every piece so far has been very intentional from the shape, color and number. 

 

I experimented a lot in different ways, with different objects. 

 

The base is a cardboard that was used for a presentation on a sculpture I made that brought awareness to the problems consumerism causes. I felt with commodification in mind I wanted to utilize something that also had symbolic meaning that was related to the cause.

I desired for others who wish to contribute to bring a rock, but I also wanted a circle of protection to repeat? Showing collaboration, so I glued obsidian to the outside of the base. With the cosmic bear I made for my son in mind, in combination with a dream I had and when I was writing it in my dream journal I accidentally wrote “felt”... so I attached fabric to the underside so it won’t slip on the floor.

 

The part in the middle is constructed with PVC pipe and fairy lights and a blue fabric that drapes over that, but then covering all of it is a dali inspired melting resin clock that holds up the be-ings.

 

Haley Hoffer

Un-Masked, Summer - 2025.

Fabric and Resin

 

In Hawaii I was gifted flowers in a Lay, so I decided to use the same method I experimented with on the goatskin ceramic drumhead. I used yellow onions, salt and hot water! I did a personal ritual along with it on healing from a mask I wore for a long time with my father. 

 

With that 2 yards of fabric, I first crafted a cross and hung it over like a Sarong using a coconut shell to tie it, inspired by my recent experience in Hawaii and learning more about the culture. 

 

I couldn’t figure out what to do so, like most things if I feel resistance I shift. I decided to make my son what he calls a cosmic bear. I used foam and drip paint to represent cosmo colors. With the left over paint I covered a blank canvas. 

 

I was explaining this to my artist mentor at one of our meetings along with my other female paintings and she made a recommendation to explore form with it, make the painting sculptural somehow in my own way. 

 

I took that drip painting off the frame and shaped it over an armature foam head with resin. Using my hands and the material this way felt good and originally I thought I would use a 3 foot vinyl print I made and shape that over a giant mold of a mask I would make so I can do something similar and have it be an overlooking spirit? 

 

I recognized the sarong spirit reminded me of Mary Beth Edelsons New York piece and my artist mentor asked me how I want it to be perceived, because it appeared as an abstract shape.

 

I took it down and tore it into a long strip of fabric. I hand crocheted as far as I could before it tore. As I sat there staring at the pile of fabric and the mask, I started to play with how it looked in different ways over the mask. At first I dipped the fabric in a modge-podge mixture, then I sprayed glue, then I coated it in resin. 

 

Haley Hoffer

Bioenergy Bears, Summer - 2025.

Resin and Mixed Medium

 

Originally I wanted to recreate the original bear I brought to residency because I enjoyed the healing aspect of facing some of the old pictures I used. Instead this time I made a clay form and a rubber mold, however the first mold had small holes and I had to remake the mold again. 

I decided to use a variation of crystals, dried flowers and broken mirror that correspond with the chakra, and each color is a representation of a part of the body along with a lesson I was learning during the time of creation.

 

While I was in Sedona, AZ meditating at a peace stupa, I was reflecting on the pictures I took and the experience there after I was returning a heart shaped rock I took there 5 years ago. This is how I concluded the idea of presenting the bears like prayer flags.

 

Haley Hoffer

Planting Seeds, Summer - 2025.

Mixed Medium

 

A set of fabric and translucent pictured prayer flags, from places I’ve traveled the last 6 months.

I photographed a series of my son holding seeds of some type throughout our travels. I really loved how playful and natural they turned out. So I printed them on translucent cards, inspired by a translucent tarot deck I have. I had a dream of seeing one of the prayer flags I printed on on fabric as a translucent card. That’s when I decided to hang the translucent cards in between the prayer flags so I presented them together.  

 

Haley Hoffer

Pololu Valley, Summer - 2025.

Vinyl Print

 

My son and I hiked to a black sand beach in Hawaii. We went barefoot and it was a challenging hike. The rainbow colors I caught reminded me of my step mom. The rainbow colors remind me of her. When we found out she had cancer I started to make a large chunky string rainbow blanket as a gift to her. She passed away before I finished. On my way to visit her for the last time, I saw double rainbows. So it was a beautiful reminder of how being present is a gift. 

 

Haley Hoffer

Healing Frequency (Heart Number), Summer - 2025.

Mixed Medium and Natural Elements?

 

Acorn, Walnut, Crystal and resined Hawaiian flowers

Originally created with a wire hoop, but on a hike back from the store my son and I found walnut shells. I decided to craft my own hoop using them instead. The bottom are flowers from hawaii that I dipped in resin. I am fascinated with sacred geometry and mobiles, inspired by alexander calder… I desired to make the wind chime in a spiral fashion. 

 

Haley Hoffer

Healing Frequency (Throat Number), Summer - 2025.

Mixed Medium

 

Found a Thunder Drum in Hawaii at a crystal shop. I was fascinated by the sound. I tried to create my own, first out of clay with the rainbow color series in mind. That failed. So then I tried to use clear cable and crystals. This didn’t produce the sound I desired. Once I figured it out, I wanted it to match the prayer flag theme I had going on so I wrapped it in hemp string. While I was wrapping, I Iiked the shape the loose hemp made and decided to do that directly on the pvc.