Brian Wilson's music is speaking to me today.  My heart cries out through his song.

The Challenge of Presentation

     This blog is rooted in work that I've been doing for a three week intensive painting class.
     The class finished rather abruptly though, and the elements of my final presentation didn't come together in the way that I wanted them to.  I did an installation ritual for our class outside of MassArt.  The ritual in and of itself was beautiful, but time, space and class requirements bogged the whole thing down.  I surrounded the area in which I was installing with picnic tables for people to sit at, which boxed the class in.  Hearing peoples' impressions was interesting until dogmatic thinking reared its head, boxing me in.  Then time constraints kept me from having a fuller dialogue with anyone.  I tried to include this blog, but the sun's glare darkened my laptop screen.
     The whole thing was anticlimactic and irritating, so I resolved never to do it again.  If I'm
going to include people in these rituals, it has to be organic, circumstantial, or not at all.

Boston Proper

This past Wednesday my boyfriend and I went to Newbury Street and turned a corner.  There is magic in alley ways.  

                                                                   Walk On By

                        I pulled Burt Bacharach's song out of my breath and into its own world.

This portion of the installations made for a very full, sensuous day.  Helen was feeling under the weather this time around, so my boyfriend Alexander came with me to document my work.  Our first stop was the site of one former installation that had disappeared very suddenly, along with the graffiti that adorned the metal post shooting up from nub of grass where it once lay.  The sight was still a small oasis in the city, and I felt an urgent need to install something new there.  

 

Right away there was something I really enjoyed about Alexander's photographs of me in relation to my work.  It was as if the nature of our romantic relationship brought out a very sensual quality in the curves of my body.  His vision made different details emerge in each picture.

Singing the Magic of Neil Young

After photographing the last remains of the old installation and finishing the new, Alexander and I boarded the green line and got off at Park Street.  The festivities were just beginning.  The park across from Tremont Street was vibrant with activity.  Right away I saw a large old tree that drew me towards it.  Between us and the tree, was a street preacher with an imposing presence.  Oddly enough, he had on a tee shirt and a kids backpack, quoting from the Bible.  He stopped us to ask where we were going, but it seemed to be only for show because he showed little interest as we passed him by.  I decided to install my work on the other side of the tree as he  continued to preach in front of it.  

Little did he know that something similar but completely different was being created behind him!  

As I installed my work, I sang Wichita Lineman into the bottle I'd chosen to work with.  However, there was a brass band that had begun to play loudly and joyously, marching past us all.  My song didn't harmonize with theirs, so I held up my bottle to capture the band's sound instead.  Even the street preacher was momentarily stymied as he looked on.  

The park was definitely crowded enough to feel peoples' presence around me, but spacious enough to move around comfortably and enjoy the warm sunny weather as we walked toward a huge stone fountain.  It too had an allure and drew me in.  A couple of different groups of people were already having their photos taken sitting by opposing sides of the fountain.  There was plenty of room for more as I settled in and got a feel for the running water.

I'm often drawn to water's magic.  My teacher had suggested incorporating water into my work and this felt like just the right moment to do so.  I took my most shapely glass jug out of my bag and dipped it into the water's edge with the aim to sink it full.  Instantaneously a little boy's curiosity was sparked.  He asked me what I was doing and if he could keep the bottle.  I would have loved to have given him something else from my bag to keep but his mother broke in and accused him of talking to strangers.  That was the end of that! 

I finished my installation with the joy he'd felt in my heart.

After discovering that our camera's memory card was full, Alexander and I began to walk away from the park in search of a Radio Shack.  I glanced behind me at an old gray-green statue of a woman.  She winked at me.  What wonder!  I was in the presence of a living statue.

I felt a strong urge to interact with her--to collaborate with or without words.  Quickly I put together one of my painted totems in a jar and placed it by the lovely statue's tip bucket.  

I made eye contact so we might have some kind of understanding between us.  I gave my installation some reiki and added a dollar to her funds before doing some of my own documentation.  Suddenly several worlds merged at once.

Across the street from the park was an empty brick storefront.  It may not have been left abandoned for very long, but already it had a decrepit quality about it that intrigued me.  I decided to install my work in front of it.  

This particular energy had a sadness to it.  I sang into a mason jar.

If you see me walking down the street

and I start to cry, each time we meet

Walk on by

One of my red Jimi Hendrix totems went inside, along with one of my embroidered felt pouches.  I filled the pouch with rose petals and frankincense.  

I felt the need to surround Jimi with green and purple flowers before surrounding him in a circle of sage and even more rose petals.  Then I myself walked on by.

Installation and the Sacred Journey

The Journey Begins.  

Going out to install  my creations with Helen documenting was quite exciting and wonderfully satisfying.  I asked Helen to take as many pictures as possible, and I showed her how to use the video section of my digital camera as well.  The video she took surprised me!  It was amazing to see myself work so delicately, and to see my genuine excitement in the process of working.  While working I'd presumed that Helen had forgotten about taking video altogether, until after we had finished for the day.  Just knowing that I had no clue that I was being filmed was amazing to me.  This whole process unfolded and she caught it in action, completely unaware of video documentation.  

We walked along Cambridge street in Brighton and had finished the installations before brunch at Twin Donuts.  I must've called these little nooks in stone walls to me (I visualized them beforehand) because there were three different small spaces carved out almost as if they were custom made for my project.  Helen had said that the universe must have answered me back, and she was right.  The color of my objects against the gray of the stone was magical, the nooks themselves were magical, and installing felt so spontaneous and organic that the whole morning left me utterly fulfilled in my work.