Rick Feely

Using his background in Western mystery traditions (Wicca and alchemy) and folk-art disciplines (natural perfumery and herbalism) Rick will create Liquid Alchemy, a line of aromatic oils made from ingredients with traditional magical properties. In many pre-imperialist traditions, trans and gender-variant people were recognized as embodying gifts of transformation and healing. Today their access to holistic and mainstream healthcare is limited and they are often positioned as powerless or mentally ill within the social order. Rick will host a summer workshop where trans and gender-variant community members can experiment with making aromatic and magical oils to use on themselves. With this project, Rick seeks to challenge the medical colonization of gender-variant people, to restore mystery traditions and healing folk arts as part of trans health and trans identity, and to provide access to affordable holistic healing products via Liquid Alchemy. Rick will first debut Liquid Alchemy as an exhibition at Fun-a-Day 2010.