January is the month of new gym memberships, new resolutions and goals with firmer guideposts. It’s for habit setting, intention-tracking, eating more kale and getting up an hour earlier. In “Ritual Practice | Sacred Space,” curator Robin Hauck pushes back against those new year demands and with art from 10 women artists proposes a softer, more internal kind of work.

“All of these artists are women and have talked to me about their practice and how they find the time and space and they protect it,” Hauck said. “They make it sacred, so that they can go really deep and do the work that you can actually only do when you get past the surface layers.”

There are pieces by Venetia Dale, Samantha Fields, L’Merchie Frazier, Rachel Perry, Crystalle LaCouture, Daniela Rivera, Sneha Shrestha (aka Imagine), Safarani Sisters, Brooke Stewart and Zainab Sumu. The works in the exhibition, on view through March 15 at The Beehive at 541 Tremont, represent a variety of media and visual styles.

Several sculptural works by Zainab Sumu seem to slow down time with their handmade intricacy. The artist uses leather, flat and rounded reeds, African shells and other fibers to weave intricate sculptures inspired by the baskets and gourds that women often make and sell in her native Sierra Leone. The works draw viewers in as they visually follow each winding pathway, the experience of looking at the pieces is meditative in itself.

In a series of paintings of tennis courts, Brooke Stewart explores the rigid lines that both aesthetically denote the court and allow players to leave everything else behind. On the court there are no to-do lists or emails, it’s just you and the game. No such walls are available for women who are juggling motherhood, creative work and paying the bills, among life’s many other needs.

For some of these artists, the making of the work is the ritual. In the opening work “Chiral Lines 34” by Rachel Perry, the artist collected every writing implement in her house and hand drew lines from the top of a large page to the bottom. The act of drawing these lines, each a little different, was a meditative ritual for the artist.

Other artists must steal time to make their work, but by prioritizing artmaking among the other tasks of life, they elevate it to sacred practice. Venetia Dale has a metalwork shop in her basement and a studio in the house where she often works in and around her children’s schedules. For “Ritual Practice | Sacred Space” she made an intricate pewter piece using molds of flowers. Another pewter sculpture is molded on food scraps collected from her children’s meals. Here, life becomes the art.

There is no admission fee to The Beehive restaurant space, although guests are welcome to grab a cocktail or listen to some of the live jazz onstage.

The unconventional venue was part of the draw for Hauck.

“It’s not a scary white cube,” she said. “It’s a warm space. It has history, community, jazz playing every night. There’s so much energy here and everyone is welcome.”

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