As a child I spent many hours playing in the swimming pool, going up and down the metal slide. Once while I was playing alone in the pool, it started raining, but in Indonesia, tropical rains are usually ignored. They vanish as suddenly as they appear. Flashes of lightning were sparking through the twilight sky. I lay on my back in the water, floating, and was looking up in astonishment. This peaceful moment was cut short by my father, who ran out shouting sternly that I must immediately get out. I was puzzled by his behavior, and he screamed furiously that I could have been electrocuted! This was a shocking idea to me. Images of the lightning hitting my body kept going through my head. I kept trying to imagine how it would feel, lightning hitting me.

It was a hot, quiet summer, 1985. Our family had gathered at the familiar spot, the house in Motovon, Yugoslavia. Motovun is a magical 13th century Venetian town on top of a hill twenty minutes away from the sea, which makes for a great distance from the hustle and bustle of the tourist-crazed coast. The river Mirna, which used to bring ships from the sea to this merchant town, has all but evaporated, and Daytona, as it was called by the Italians, is blissfully removed from the world.

On either side of the entrance to the house are two rooms with stone walls which were obviously stores; we heard that the merchant in this house sold olive oil and flour. These rooms are cold and were never really used, although they were the subjects of many of our daydreams. Our mother had so many visions for these rooms that I lost track-her favorite was of an antique store. But none of them materialized; the rooms are empty to this day.

I was reading about Agni, the Indian fire god-the Sun and the Heart of the Sun. Agni is the god who, as fire, receives the sacrifice and, as priest, offers it to the gods. The element of fire also pervades the whole universe. The Sun, in the highest heaven, is kindled in the storm cloud and comes down to earth as lightning where he is ever reborn by the hands of men. And so we are transformed through fusion with the light, the Divine light.

Inspired by these images I decided to do a performance called "Red Angel" and announced to everybody in town that the show would last for five hours. First I started working on the space. I painted the walls. One side was dark, with snakes moving toward the ceiling; it was black, Red and brown. The other wall facing the dark side was light, the future, and the center had a two-faced bird, looking both east and west; next to it was a large spiral. Then I took some wooden panels and painted them silver, with some Hebrew writing that I copied from a record that I borrowed from Lucia, a friend who comes to Motovun every summer. She sparked off the whole event in a way. We had one of those Motovun discussions about art, and I set off to prove something, I don't quite remember what...

I was hanging out with a young guy during my stay that summer. We were being really wild, like two stones hitting each other, creating friction. He became part of this Event. I painted an old chair and wrote "Red Angel" on it, put it in front of the door, as a sign. Then I filled three stone vessels that had been used a long time ago for olive oil, with colored water, one Red, another yellow, and the third black. Strange things were being reflected here-Hebrew writing and a German flag? I don't know what I was tapping into here; eerie echoes of World War 11?1 painted my whole body Red. I then wrapped myself in a Red piece of fabric and put on my head a Montenegran cap I found among our souvenirs in the house. The boy was in charge of the record; it was to play continuously. The record was of songs of children in a Jewish ghetto, in Yiddish. I really don't know why it moved me so. We lit many candles around the room. I struck a pose of a Roman goddess statue and we opened the doors to the public.

The first hour was the hardest. I had many thoughts going through my mind, many distractions from the people who started streaming in.But the worst was controlling my body. After not too long, my muscles started tensing. I started thinking that I wouldn't make it through. My mother came in and started panicking that I was standing on a cold floor bare foot÷there go the ovaries! My father was getting drunk on local Red wine. It was all a challenge to keep from bursting into laughter. People were talking into my ear, purposely trying to make me move. And then I suddenly thought: "I'm wearing Red, like the monks, the Buddhist monks; they meditate for hours without moving. So I will become one of them." My eyes were half closed, and I moved my sight to a candle flame. Slowly the sounds of the people surrounding me became a murmur. I visualized Motovun on top of the hill, and myself the statue standing on top. The warm wind was caressing my body, my Red garment flowing beautifully. In the distance I imagined how the river moved when it was in its prime, with Venetian ships calmly flowing. I looked up at the sun and felt the warmth like a bath of blissful energy. Then suddenly I felt angels surrounding me, playing with me, touching me with their Wings. Amorphous, they had no faces, like birds of energy, smiling energy. I realized that they were communicating to me, that they approved of my action. Slowly there were more and more of them, creating a spiral around my body and up, up into the sky towards the center of the Sun. As I descended back into the space, I heard blurred sounds first; then they became voices and I heard someone whispering in my ear, "I love you," dropping something into my hands, which were open and cupped. I closed my hand and slowly opened my eyes. There was quite a sight in front of me; a pagan get-together had taken place. There were food leftovers, opened bottles of wine with empty cups. People sat at the edge of the room comfortably chatting. I had really become like a statue, non-imposing. It was time to close the doors....

Later, I was told what had transpired. Tourists passed through and took photographs, posing next to me. Lucia came in and started crying; it really touched a soft spot in her. I guess I proved whatever I set out to, which now completely escapes me. And then a group of friends brought food and wine and sat down to enjoy the show. In my hand was a rosary, with a Virgin Mary.

I continued to work with the image of Red Angel in many media. Appropriately enough, by strange circumstance I ended up having a workspace in a bronze foundry in Corona, Queens. I was working on a Red Angel installation that traveled to Venice. The presence of fire was constant.

Every time bronze was melted, the workers knew to call me to watch. Liquid metal being poured; I was witnessing an ancient alchemical process. One moment hard, the next liquid. One moment shapeless, the next a face, a body, anything out of our imagination. I made one bronze during my short stay there, a Wing. Just before it was ready to be cast, a fire broke out in the workroom. Thanks to one of the workers, it was saved. It was in wax form at that point, and it would have just melted away.

The installation consisted of one Red sculpture, with the wing; one white sculpture, a ship, egg shaped, on top of which were found pieces of a shipwreck; and three paintings, two Red and one white; the white one I named "White Result."

I was in a fiery creative mood there, but just as soon as the pieces were completed, I lost the space; it was sold. So once again I was without a workspace and I continued my artwork in a basement on St. Marks Place belonging to Lawson, a friend and carpenter I've known for years. It was fine at first, especially since Lawson is such a good craftsman. He helped me build a Column, a Moon, the Ship and the pedestal for the Wing. During this period I spent most of the time wearing a gas mask. We used very toxic materials and in a way they mirrored the surroundings that were developing. Crack crept into this space, and the situation deteriorated swiftly. Crack keeps nasty company; pretty soon it became unbearable. This particular smoking ritual is one of death, destruction and suicide; some very evil spirits are summoned with its smoke.

The ancient Greeks reamed much from the Zoroastrian magi, who left no monuments because they believed in natural powers. Herodotus commented: "The erection of statues, temples and altars is not an accepted practice among them, and anyone who does such a thing is considered a fool, because, presumably, the Persian religion is not anthropomorphic like the Greek. God in their system is the whole circle of the heavens and they sacrifice to him from the top of the mountains. They also worship the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and winds, which are their only original deities...." Herodotus also mentions the Medean magi, who were known long before the days of Zoroaster as a magico-priestly caste, one of the six tribes of Medes. It is from this race of men that the word magic is derived. To the Greeks, the word rnagia originally signified the religion, reaming and occult of the Eastern magi. The magi penetrated into Greece, India and even into China. They transcended religious differences, for there was always something universal and international about the nature of magic. It was the descendants of this priestly caste that came from the East to proclaim and worship the newborn Christ.

The Greeks had a goddess who represented the priceless life-giving necessity of fire÷Hestia. She was the deity of the hearth, daughter of Cronus and Rhea. In Greek tradition she has almost no mythology; she is mentioned only in the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite. She refuses both her brother Poseidon (Water) and her nephew Apollo as consorts, insisting on remaining a virgin. Hestia is a sacred principle personified and much honored. She kept apart from the disputes on Mount Olympus, and was represented in the city, which maintained the public hearth, as well as in the home. She was invoked before all sacrifices, and colonizers from Greece took fire to their new lands from their native city hearth, the prytaneia. The Romans continued the practice, renaming the state goddess of the hearth Vesta. The Zoroastrian bible was called Avesta; there is a direct connection, a tradition handed down.

Vesta was also worshipped in every household. The sacred fire of the state burned in Vesta's temple on Via Sacra, just below the Forum; it was renewed on March 1st, the first day of the Roman year (Angelica's birthday). Otherwise it burned perpetually. Her festival Vestalia was held on June 9th, the day I was born. On that day her beast, the ass, was given a holiday from labor and decorated with garlands of violets and strings of small loaves. The storehouse of the temple of Vesta was opened from the 7th to the 15th of June to enable the Roman matrons to bring their offerings to the goddess. During this period all public business ceased.

The temple of Vesta in Rome represented the house and hearth of the ancient kings, and just as the Rex sacorum was a priest who represented the king, the vestal virgins represented the king's daughters. They were originally four in number, later six, but always highborn girls from patrician families. They had a number of duties but were principally the guardians of the fire of the state hearth in the temple of Vestal. The office was a very ancient one, older than Rome itself. The vestals were sworn to absolute chastity, but they could return to private life after thirty years of service. If, during that time, one was found guilty of breaking her vow, she was buried alive in an underground chamber near the Colline gate, conveyed there bound hand and foot in a covered litter. She was made to descend a long wooden stair, which was then drawn up. (Michael Stapleton, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology, Peter Bedrick Books, New York, 1986, p. 207, Vestal )

Men who are connoisseurs of smoking (in the Western world) always relate to their smoking passionately, as if to a lover. ].M. Barrie's book Lady Nicotine about the pleasures of smoking says that a gentleman must always use a "Vesta" to light his cigar. They differ from ordinary matches only in the name, the tradition.