Five days of sourcing and sauntering around Kelowna, finding artifacts and art facts that would contribute to this new religion. A lot of play with sound and sight, which all led to narrative tricks and tales to relate to this religious project. The text(s) below are hardly sacred, but they do reflect something of the faith...These were the didactics place next to the various objects and photographs inhabiting the corner of the Alternator Gallery....
The consonants “S” and “X” from the Roman alphabet are of absolute significance in this religion, which, of course, derives its very name from these symbols. Adherents of the faith will see these letters – on their own and together – in numerous combinations every single day. These symbols first came to the First Prophet in a dream where he saw the figures flying through the air on wings. He was perturbed to see hundreds of disciples, fully clothed but for inexplicable reasons, shoeless. This element of the prophecy was not fully understood until the first Disciple entered the faith. When the First Prophet visited a display outlet store on the western coast, he was drawn to a bin containing symbols purporting to designate clothing sizes, and he immediately purchased a case of the “extra small” denominators – XS. The Prophet was struck by the interdimensionality of this Gift: the XS clips, inverted, read perfectly as SX. Thus began the first of the Relics, the encasement of what were once garment clips inside what were once jewellry boxes. True adherents of the faith always carry a copy of this Relic wherever they go.
Sally Xaiver, originally from Essex County, was visiting Kelowna for a distant cousin’s wedding when she chanced upon the First Prophet in a beer hall named after a great fish. They had a stimulating, but otherwise not memorable, conversation, and at closing time they bid each other well and Sally made her way back to her residence. As she walked along a street that was named after a head of a monastery, she was drawn as if by magnetic force down a dark street toward the water. As she got closer, she began to quicken her pace, first to a brisk walk, then to a jog, and finally to a full-out sprint. She began uttering incantations from an ancient language that no one has yet deciphered and, in her desire to be fleet of foot, discarded her shoes in ecstasty. It was at this moment she became the First Disciple, moments before she dove headlong in the lake, never to re-emerge. This is now referred to as the Divine Podiatral Ascension, and all subsequent disciples have experienced similar episodes of incomprehensible jabbering concomitant with the ecstatic discarding of all footwear.
While other faiths express dualities and trinities, it is not surprising that our faith is attentive to the number 6 (SiX) and has acquired a Holy Sextenary. These are: 1) sandalwood incense and myrrh which, when lit, enter the Disciples’ bodies through scent and breath; 2) the holy bag of sand, discovered by the First Prophet along a Kelowna beach – note the uncanny nature of the bag in which the sand was discovered, emblazoned with the Sacred Letters hidden within the word, “SoeX”; 3) the Sign, originally discovered by the First Prophet and later mounted by the Original Disciples on a fragment of Sacred Beach Wood. It is still used as a seal for ceremonial purposes; 4) the Elements – tobacco flakes, rock salt, and pine cone – are inherent to the belief system and were collated by First Minister Heather Martin, aka Sister SX; 5) as all living entities are close to the heart of this faith, adherents of SX lopped off these berries to display them because they were in the shape of the Sign; 6) in death there is life, and so this display of fallen leaves collected from the House of Jefferess, Johnstone and Johnstone (HJ3)is a significant part of the Holy Sextenary.
Adherents of the faith will see a surfeit of feathers everywhere and at all times. Sometimes they are attached to the bird who grew them; sometimes they are floating through the air; and sometimes they are found along the footpath. Ministers are required by doctrinal law to bend and retrieve any such feathers, while adherents may gather these artifacts but are also permitted to simply observe with requisite obeisance.
Because the godhead in this faith is ephemeral, ethereal, and disembodied, it is often represented as a transparent female head. This should not be mistakenly thought of as an idol or an actual representation of a specific deity, but as a meditative practice to focus the disciple’s thoughts on the true meaning of the religion. It is said that only the Final Prophet will be able to lift the Sacred Head without scattering the enclosed SX/XS relics across the Holy Table and over the secular gallery floor. It is not known when the Final Prophet will appear, but according to the Book of Signs, it will probably be a late Thursday afternoon or perhaps an early Friday morning.
When the First Prophet was touched by the faith, he immediately wrote down all the tenets and laws of the religion in the Book of Signs. As this was divine language, it is not accessible to non-believers, and although scores of linguists and computer technicians have exhausted countless probability equations, they are still no closer to translating the text. Disciples of the faith are often surprised that others are unable to decipher what to them is the simplest of sacred texts, which has led to friction in communities where the religion has taken hold. The greatest epiphany to behold is where a non-believer pores over the book with furrowed brow, then in a brilliant instant doffs all footwear and begins to preach in languages unknown.
This interview was recorded by satellite link between a journalist reporting from Essex, U.K, with the First Prophet in Kelowna, during the First Holy Installation. There is some speculation that upon completing the interview, the reporter shook off his Birkenstocks and leapt feet first into the Thames to join the First Prophet, but this is unsubstantiated.
The First Three Ministers, the initial half of the Holy Sextet that adjudicates over all religious matters and has the power to initiate and discipline all disciples, celebrate their conjoined nature. First Ministers Younging, Pickering, Martin perform the Dance of the Us Not Them, which acknowledges adherents and non-believers alike.
The First Three Ministers prepare the Dance of the Unclad Feet. Note that they begin the ceremony wearing footgarb since upon discarding sandals and shoes they immediately begin talking in gibberish and so can no longer understand each other until someone once again dons shoes (called re-soleing) and adjourns the ceremony in a language the others can understand.
This polaroid photograph of the Lake was taken several decades before the Polaroid camera was invented, a sign to believers of the forward-thinking nature of their faith.
The inverted tree is a symbol of life and culture, known as the Tree of Rodney, and much discussed by scholars of the faith.
Shadows in the XS culture are as real and true as the bodies that form them. It is probably the only global religion that acknowledges it truly makes sense to be afraid of your own shadow. Also to get out of the way in case it hits you.
This photograph looks remarkably like the Kasugai Gardens in Kelowna, but is actually a re-creation formed by pure mental energy pouring forth from the First Prophet. He also does still lifes of fruit bowls, but mostly gardens.
The Shroud of XS is another result of pure mental energy flowing from the First Prophet, formed after a night of restless dreams. The first time it happened, an angry hotelier demanded reparations for soiled sheets, but since then the First Prophet travels with a rubber sheet and extra linens. Unlike other religious shrouds that are either one-ofs, or knock-offs, the Shroud of XS is eminently replicable, limited only by the number of times the First Prophet naps.
Two of the first adherents of the faith, Mr. and Mrs. Smith later went on to successful modeling careers in the photographic frame business.
