Images to come…..

The Tender Rite: A Mother's Offering to the Young Masculine

By Crystal Araiza

Rim of the World Road Concert, 2025

Medium:

Interactive Multimedia Installation

Site-Specific Sculpture

Participatory Ritual Art

Materials:

Repurposed chain-link fence panels (former gate)

Large branches and sticks

Sports equipment (dartboard, tennis rackets, golf clubs, helmets, etc.)

Plastic kiddie pool

Corkboard/message boards

Zip ties, burlap, and natural debris

Guideposts with written offerings and symbolic artifacts

Items like toy guns, books, musical instruments, action figures

What It Is:

This piece is a tipi-shaped interactive installation constructed from repurposed chain-link fencing, branches, sports gear, and other found materials. Visitors are invited to sit, walk through, reflect, and engage with symbolic guideposts, transforming this public space into a contemplative site for exploring masculinity, emotion, grief, and the often-invisible labor of motherhood.

Inspiration:

This work emerged from my lived experience as a grieving partner and solo mother after the tragic passing of my fiancé, Jake — the gentlest man I’ve ever known — who lost his battle with substance use disorder. I moved to the San Bernardino mountains in 2023 seeking nature’s healing and began working at Serenity Lodge, an all-men’s treatment center. There, I heard story after story of men—especially sensitive ones—who felt unseen, unheld, and ultimately abandoned by a culture that teaches boys to harden rather than feel.

At the same time, I witnessed the quiet anguish of mothers — doing their best with limited support, battling guilt, and bearing the burden of trying to raise emotionally whole sons in a society that offers them so few paths to do so.

When I saw the Road Concerts' call for artists in March 2025 — centered around liminal space — I knew I had something to say. I began envisioning a “womb-like” structure: something protective, symbolic, and sacred. That became the genesis of this piece — a kind of ritual offering from the Divine Mother archetype to her sons and to the masculine soul in all of us.

Conceptual Lens:

At its core, The Tender Rite examines masculinity under cultural pressure, and the limited tools mothers and caregivers are often given to guide it. The structure’s materials — chain-link fencing, sports gear, padding — reflect both protection and pressure. It’s a shrine to boyhood, both celebrated and constrained.

The center pool represents emotion, cleansing, and invitation — while the guideposts point the viewer toward different inner states of mind from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy:

• Emotional Mind (release, music, art)

• Logical Mind (external knowledge, discernment)

• Wise Mind (integration, reflection — symbolized by water)

It also reflects life on this mountain — where space is tight, resources are limited, and homes often mirror that sense of containment. The structure’s intimacy is intentional.

Interactive Invitation:

You are invited to walk through the symbolic journey of the young masculine — or simply witness it. Reflect. Leave behind your own offering. Respond to prompts posted on the corkboards. Add your voice to the prayer.

The objects and guideposts outside the structure offer maternal wisdom, symbolic ritual, or stark contrast. They ask: What did you need to hear as a child? What wisdom would you give your son? Where does the pain go when there is no one to receive it?

Closing Note:

This piece is not an answer.
It’s a wound made visible.
A cradle built from cultural scrap.
A mother’s whispered prayer through steel and branch and plastic pool:
May you be seen. May you feel. May you come home to yourself.

What are we offering the next generation?
And what have we left unsaid?