Rita’s Where
Nisi Ariana
Neon Destiny
Nisi Ariana, age 4
First woman to finish college in my ancestral lineage. My paternal grandmother was valedictorian of her high school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, even as her parents spoke Yiddish only. A painter and writer publishing under a male pseudonym, she was holding down a full-time day job, and after being accepted to The Cooper Union, studied to become a professional artist.
At that time, women were forbidden from painting from the nude model, from studying Fine Art, and were restricted to ‘lady-like crafts’. Her life was cut short when my father was five, when his stepfather (her ex-husband) ended her life. I learned to read trauma to manage ancestral generational trauma before I could speak. This necessity opened up a voice of wisdom and clarity, and buttressed and directed by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique at age twelve, I committed to breaking the cycle.
My biggest obstacle was the lack of role models. The ones available were raggedy Anne’s, plastic barbies, Charlie’s Angels, and a parade of babysitters with no boundaries. The public education was a smorgasbord of dates, places, and meaningless memory deposits about random people I would never waste time on so I decided at 14, my writing and painting would remain my vehicle out of dodge. I turned all my focus on this task and never looked back. I was accepted to The Cooper Union and began my Fine Art studies, from the nude model, permitted in all the classes, including engineering and architecture if I chose, and earned my BFA in Painting.
Nisi Ariana, age 21
Cortona, Italy, Summer Painting Scholarship Residency
Handmade Cast Silver JewelryBack to Wax
LoveWarrior’s journey back to ancient wax
handmade jewelry cast with organic beeswax melted out of a ceramic shell
Back to Wax joins responsibly sourced metals and Rose Quartz. The earliest use of this stone shows up in Mesopotamian artifacts with Rose Quartz beads from 7,000 BCE. Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Chinese traditions used Rose Quartz. Across cultures, the stone was associated with love, kindness, and the heart. It supports unconditional love, self-love, emotional healing, compassion, is associated with the Heart chakra and the element of Water. Carried close to the heart, Rose Quartz anchors meditation, yoga, journaling, and practices focused on the heart.
Mojo Dojo DubFeels Like Rita
Feels Like Rita is my solo music project. I make long psychedelic dub, which is perfect for walking and photographing the environment. It is also well-suited for yoga and meditative somatic practices. I am certified in trauma informed yoga, have been studying yoga for 26 years, am part of a somatic nervous system inquiry collective, and am music producer & creative director at My Mojo Dojo sound lab at Eternal Job Lot, LLC. I have studied acoustic space design for many years across multiple disciplines, diegetic sound design, and music therapy.
Music for Doobie Dogs (4- and 2- legged souls)
I use my dog’s nervous system to calibrate high, low frequencies, a slow even bpm, soft sonic landscapes with no sharp surprises while maintaining gradual organic changes, and long immersive psychedelic pockets. I’ve been analyzing why music works to regulate dogs and humans for decades. I listen from my dog’s perspective and compose based on his likes and dislikes. My goal with each track is to compose it into a reliable respite.
I use a steady tempo close to a resting heart rate, trim away very low and high frequencies, simplify my sonic palette so nothing feels sharp or jarring to a sensitive ear. The overall rhythm is repetitive and predictable, which lets the nervous system relax. Volume stays pretty gentle and even, creating an immersive, suspended mood, more a held space to settle into than a song with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
I didn’t learn this from a textbook. I learned it growing up in my father’s studio, where he built his own surround sound world by hand. I’ve been versed in sound and presence since before I had words for it. My understanding of what soothes a nervous system doesn’t come from academic credentials. It comes from a lifetime of lived expertise around sound, attachment, and healing.
Mojo Dojo Dub is an album produced for My Mojo Dojo, a sound lab where acoustic space is an instrument, centered within the multichannel sound system built by my father, Ken Jacobs, in his art studio and loft space.
There are multiple amps and vintage speakers hanging from rafters and tucked into hidden enclaves around the entire loft space, creating a thrilling activation when the listener is seated in a particular seat. Convolution reverb allows for the translation of this unique personal space to be replicated to any material played in the lab (as well as the option for material to play at the Colorado Red Rocks Amphitheater, Sagano Bamboo Forest, Japan, Inchindown Fuel Tanks, UK, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and other majestic environments.
Framed Prints and Canvases
By Nisi Ariana
A practice is personal. Structure makes space. Within it, instinct returns.
Printed at Fine Art America
