Photo: Cheyenne McCarter
I continue to work with an excerpt from Michel Serres' THE FIVE SENSES, contributed by Sarah Bliss, now fully transcribed and in a partial state of deconstruction through cutting and spinning into yarn.
This evening I struggled with issues around installing a low-hanging curtain and creating a new method related to the spinning. I was not able to settle into performance until 11:00 pm and was sorry to disappoint a few friends who came out on this warm summery night expecting to view something in the window. More time is needed in the space, I've decided. Many thanks to my friend and colleague Cheyenne McCarter who came by to shoot some video and stills.
Cheyenne's presence outside Mobius had an unexpected impact on my performance. She actively recruited passersby who noticed her with a tripod and camera pointing towards the window and engaged them in her interpretation of what Wrapped Intention is about. She talked about the piece in terms of sending healing energy out into the world and encouraged people to respond to the writing materials I'd placed underneath the mail slot. She even pursuaded a couple hurrying to the airport to tell her the name of someone who needed healing, which she offered to write for them on mulberry paper.
Photo: Cheyenne McCarter
Photo: Cheyenne McCarter
This evening my task was to spin the second half of the Serres transcription into yarn. I had a drop spindle and a bowl filled with water (needed for spinning) resting on a bed of ice. The inspired use of block ice by Jeff and Sandy Huckleberry in their 'Color' performances - coupled with the sailor's account in Serres' text of the icy cold as he struggled to locate himself within and without his burning vessel - impelled me to add this material. The ice offered of itself an exquisite trickling sound as it slowly melted, in the quite stillness of my interior space, punctuated by the snippets of animated conversations outside. My focused spotlight glowed radiant inside this chilled pedestal, reflecting back onto my hands from the mirrors on which this assemblage rested.
I had wrapped the Serres text around a cardboard tube at the conclusion of my Seventh Week performance - morphed into one very long, continuous quarter-inch paper strip from a 24 x 36 inch formed sheet by an hour-long cutting action. The resulting object inspired me to hang the tube in the window this eighth week and engage it as a mechanism for feeding the strip downward - pulling it into the water with my left hand as my other hand fed it to my spindle, twirling in my fingers. Some friction caused by the tube encountering the low-hanging curtain (masking my face from the viewer and the viewer's face from mine) made it necessary to exercise the greatest care and patience when pulling, so as not to tear the fragile paper strip. My fingers became cold, shriveled, stiff.
Photo: Cheyenne McCarter
Eight candles were grouped by Bob's image. Fire and ice.
Photo: Cheyenne McCarter
After midnight I ended the performance, extinguished the candles and set about de-installing. As I worked I became aware of people stopping outside, talking quietly. They had taken notice of the un-cut, whole-form transcription of the first half of the Serres excerpt generated on the Sixth Week that I'd taped to the opposite window for passersby to read, backed by the dark curtains. I stilled myself and listened. They were a couple, male and female, taking turns reading aloud successive paragraphs of my hand-written transcription in a call and response fashion. I quietly took a seat on the other side of the window - my body tired and chilled - and secretly listened with gratitude for their choice in this moment to curiously observe and respond - creatively engaging with each other as a sailor's dramatic account unfolded in their slow performative recitation; a precious gift to this innocent voyeur.
When all became silent I was sure they'd left - but the clink of the mail slot a minute later added to my joy. I placed their contributions at the end of this blog entry.
My final contributors of the evening used what paper was left (the mulberry had run out).
