Penny Slinger has been exploring the connection between eroticism, mysticism, feminism, and art for over fifty years. Slinger mined surrealism in the 1960s and 1970s in performance and collage works to plumb the depths of the feminine psyche and subconscious. She continues to work in many mediums including collage, photography, drawing, sculpture, and video. A documentary about her life, Penny Slinger: Out of the Shadows, was released in 2017 by filmmaker Richard Kovitch. Slinger continues to receive considerable recognition for her trailblazing work.

Poem:

Time to think about
A reawakening
This time out
Is space opened up
To self-reflect
Individually
And collectively.

The role of the artist
Is as shaman
Reawakening her viewers
To their own inner knowing
Lost in a sea of consumerism
Ready to be
Reclaimed
On the edge of reality
Where the true artist lives
Untethered
To the mundane
Free falling in uncharted seas
Swimming against the tide
Of unconsciousness
Of hearts grown careless
Through continual numbing
And habitual cruelties
Which mask
Instinctual understanding.
Time to come back home
The artist shaman
Shouts through every image
Whispers in every disillusion
That she wraps reality in
As a prayer
As a subtle subterfuge
Longing
For the reawakening of each soul
Into the memory
Of the One
Into honoring all things
As sacred
All beings
As worthy of respect
Full of spirit
As they are
Whether we see it or not
Each tree pulses
With a heartbeat
Each creature feels
Sensitive
Connected
Remembering
The artist shaman
Mixes a potion
To help us recall
This dream of life In its pure essence
Reawakening us
To who we really are
Reminding our hearts
That we care
About every single particle
As living consciousness
As part of us
As we are part of all that is
For the well woven myth
Of separation
That we have all been living Is dense and thick
And full of lies
And can only be penetrated
By the shaman's fire of truth
Which will burn to ashes
The sickly web
And all will rise
Like phoenixes
Reborn
With clear seeing hearts
Reclaiming our right
To live in harmony
With all things
And be at peace
Back home.