chaotic project diary #1
Hello!
This newsletter is going to be more project diary and less miniessay about linguistics because real stuff is finally happening! And by ‘real stuff’ I mean stuff that’s more fun than emails or staring at a budget spreadsheet while various parts of my body rhythmically clench and unclench as I try to decide if what I’m feeling is the start of a panic attack or a normal level of excitement. The verdict on that is still out, but my asshole is currently quite relaxed, thank you for asking.
In my first-ever class at art school, the drawing teacher began the lesson by telling us we should switch majors if constantly schlepping our work and/or supplies around town would be a problem. On the one hand, this is some ableist bullshit, but on the other hand, I’ve been doing this for a decade and truly am always schlepping my work around one town or another so I think she kind of had a point. Why is art so heavy? I bring this up because I recently realized that I’ve moved studios, either fully or partially, nine times in the last five years, which works out to a really stupid amount of schlepping. I was originally going to write this whole newsletter about moving studios but turns out there’s not much to unpack (pun intended) beyond expressing gratitude for being able to have had a studio at all. So I guess all that is to say, don’t ask me to help you move. My arms are tired. Should I have deleted this section? Comment below if you think I should have deleted this section and gone straight from my asshole joke to the next paragraph.
My 9th partial move was three weeks ago into Inter Arts Matrix’s giant rehearsal space so I could pump out 27 large soft sculptures. Two weeks before that I got a sewing lesson from my friend, Brenda Reid. Before that, I had never even really looked at a sewing machine, much less operated one. I honestly thought of using a sewing machine in the same way I think of plumbing or heart surgery (a highly specialized skill that can only be done by people who are not me). Astoundingly, using a sewing machine is actually not that hard and is a very normal ability for someone to possess. That’s news to no one except the two other suburban JAPs reading this who are currently impressed with me for interacting with a piece of machinery. I see you, girl.
My original plan for the sculptures was to make very geometric uniform shapes with lots of clean lines and repetition. I quickly realized how deathly boring this would be. So much measuring and cutting and pinning and ughh what an absolute drag! Instead, I used a rotatory cutter and zigzagged my way through some thrift store fabric and came away with lots of wiggly, expressive lines that, combined with 40lbs of stuffing, became a bunch of pillows vaguely resembling letters.
Even though the “design” and decision-making for this portion of the project were largely intuitive, I approached it knowing that I needed shapes that reference letters without being from any discernible language. When the performers play with them, I want it to be a metaphor for how we experiment with language in each new interaction. There will be a familiarity but also a clunkiness and a sense that once everyone learns how to settle into this new way of communicating, things will be ok. In the performance, these sculptures will get rearranged, traded, taken and used as a sort of shelter or barrier. They are meant to be interacted with intimately in the same way you might roll a certain word or phrase around in your mouth a bit before committing to saying it out loud. I hope their size and curves become a puzzle that you know you can solve.
As I’m writing, I’m realizing just how integral the idea of dissipation is to this project. Or maybe it’s more accurately a tenuous connection to presence. Basically, the ability to be perpetually present and somehow also disappearing. Wait! Maybe this is how I can connect the whole thing about moving studios to the rest of this newsletter. I’ve always been on these short-term leases or needing different project spaces and so while I was present in the space, I was also always anticipating the next move. Like a conversation itself, I was experiencing the balancing act of being present while simultaneously preparing for what comes next. You guuuuys!! I did it!! What an absolute thrill it is to tie up loose ends!!!
Alright back to business:
I think the way the sculptures achieve this is by being reminiscent of scrawl or a kind of fleeting translation of a spoken word. There is an attempt to nail down a spectral thing but its formlessness means it can never totally work. During my research phase of this project, I read a poetry collection called The Wug Test by Jenny Kronovet. It’s about linguistics and surely helped broaden my understanding of certain concepts, but for whatever reason, I had trouble paying attention to the poems and they mostly did not get absorbed. I’ve since returned to the collection and had the same problem, however, I discovered a line in the back cover blurb that speaks to me in a way the poems did not: “...the poems evoke the frightening and potent space before speech, revealing the ways language uses us.”
Maybe these sculptures are my attempt at depicting “the potent space before speech”. They are pre-letters. Not quite nothing almost somethings. Participating, but also packing.
*high fives you powerfully, filled with the renewed confidence of someone who thought she lost the narrative thread and then, when she least suspected it, found it and used it to tie everything together in a neat little package. Then high fives you again, lingering for a second as your hands meet midair.*