(three stills from one of many...possibly too many videos I made about feeding crows)1.30.2008
Crow project video
(three stills from one of many...possibly too many videos I made about feeding crows)
1.23.2008
Submerged
The piece 'Seed' is submerged in waters left after a flood. It was a favorite place for me to visit in Hawaii, near Kawaihae. It was an oasis in the desert. Because you could not drive there, I was usually the only one around. This is the place where I taught myself how to use underwater video cameras of different varieties, and also where my first video camera sunk one fateful day. It was down the hill from a Hawaiian sacred site. I tried to acknowledge the spiritual nature of the area. I dream of this place.
Paper Dress, 2002 Anna P
This piece was my very first in the garment inspired sculpture collection. This one is titled, Simplicity. Made from the most fragile old sewing patterns. They were given to me when the local seamstress, Mrs Hasagawa retired. She was in tears at the thought of throwing away the small mountain of papers that held the history of her labors. So I appeared on the scene, liberated the patterns in true scavenger style and then had Mrs Hasagawa over for tea to view the piece. If we only knew then that it started six manic years of garment installations!
1.18.2008
Travels of the Mind
I began my day sauntering up the East side of Manhattan looking for a gated courtyard with stairs. Maybe the New York City version of this is different than my mental picture. I am looking for a fountain, some plants, maybe a bench. Instead I find a seven-foot tall security guard in a concrete stairwell asking me about my intentions. My intentions? Well, let’s see, “I intend to get into a medical research study for the betterment of all mankind.” Mmm, too broad I guess. He asks again in the way I get asked by customs officers in airports, “Anything to declare?” Then they repeat it in the “We know you have three live octopus in a Ziploc bag, Miss” kind of tone. This guy is no different so I state that I have an appointment. I tried to dress presentably. What on earth made him zoom in on me? Why me I think, as he eyes my tote bag. I was trying to do a mental inventory of the contents: an apple, a book, wallet, journal, concert schedule, and firearms? Was that what his question turned accusation implied? I was wearing mauve pumps did he really think I was up to something wearing this impractical footwear? I realized that he was asking questions out of boredom more than anything. I sort of shuffled away as I answered and he stopped asking me things.
I found myself wandering empty hallways and vacated cubicles. It was nearly ten and none of the research staff was anywhere to be found. The locked offices were labeled with area numbers rather than room numbers. It gave a spooky feel to the psychology research, like those top secret mind control experiments that we see movies about. That idea was fresh in my mind as I walked the other night with my Santaland pal. I saw the bridge and candy striped smoke stacks that are featured in a conspiracy theory movie staring Mel Gibson. So two days later here I am walking my way through area 53 and area 54, willingly nonetheless. I find the “area” of the researcher who conducted a phone interview with me. His “area” door had his name scrolled in frantic letters on a wipe board. These were reminiscent of a note left by a hostage in hopes that someone would find their message on the palm leaf.
On the floor there is a much larger wipe board that looks as if it was left out in the rain. Abbreviated disorders in all capitals along with words like screening, submit, internal, funds, chart, flow sheet, 200/year. I wonder what all of this means, as I interpret it more as a conceptual free verse piece rather than medical research. I hear movement nearby and it turns out to be research assistants in pink sweaters and skinny jeans that accelerate their walk ever so slightly in my presence. Boy they walk slowly, “no wonder we don’t find a cure for anything.” I think to myself as they carry one over-sized binder at a time, just to make the magic last. They were walking even slower than the sales staff at Macy’s at break time. I had sat myself down at an empty cubicle near someone’s new laptop. The assistants’ converse and laugh about some female patient they found crying in the hallway. Oh my, this seemed even too harsh for emotionally distant psychiatrists in training. On another pass by they note that she was crying over a potentially life threatening medical condition. Funny stuff in area 53 I thought. I must have given my Grandmother Pearl’s look of death, because one stammered a bit before trying to change the topic. They both grew slightly uncomfortable at the notebook scribbles I was making. It took them twenty minutes to piece together that I was possibly a visiting researcher in mauve pumps. Next pass by they each carried two binders. I feel relieved knowing that the future of psychiatric medical research is in good hands.
I looked again at my watch and realized that I had arrived so early to the deserted building that I never checked the latch on his door. I knocked a cheerful knock to possibly wake him, and then quickly tried the handle. Nope. Another Doctor had scrawled in an equally creepy hand his name and area number on a garbage can. Where are all of these researchers? Were they all taken hostage just moments after lifting a Sharpie to whatever was in reach? I find myself getting restless after a twenty- minute wait, so I browse the pile of children’s books next to the free verse poetry wipe board. I read book titles like Doggies and My Shimmery Fun Time Book. Anyone being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has already been to hell and back, so I cannot picture these books helping all that much. I decide to pick up the phone and dial the researchers extension in case he is in there tied to a chair. I find no dial tone and that doesn’t surprise me considering the fire alarm had been ripped off the wall with bare wires flowing out. Hmm, maybe the line was cut in the hostage taking. At my desk I find a PTSD Protocol sheet. Probably shouldn’t have looked at the form that the Doctors must fill out, as it is pretty bleak summarization of your mental health. It is a 0 to 7 rating for how screwed up someone is, from not messed up to wacko is roughly the scale. Oops, I definitely wished that I didn’t see that. I imagine myself in the clinical trial interview trying to decipher if the Psychiatrist just made a 7 on the page. Was that a 7 or one of those sweeping European ones I would think as I tried to read it upside down. A one would give me roughly a rating of “tweaked,” I could live with that, but a seven would potentially make me the hostage taker. Tweaked would have me writing verse with a Sharpie in a bad hand, but not much more.
The red haired researcher sweeps in several minutes late and doesn’t piece together that I, the person sitting in his area cubicle is his ten o’clock. When I introduce myself as a potential research patient he drops his hands down in a “I am unarmed” gesture while asking me in overly polite, cautious words to “Please step back into the waiting area.” On the phone he had told me to appear at his “area.” Now I am being treated like a loose cannon. I am given about twelve pages to fill out with the top one being a PDSQ test booklet. Boy that was loads of fun as it made you carefully sort through your life looking for personal traumas, encroaching detachment from society, anxiety attacks, panic, isolation and depression rearing it’s head. Add to that compulsive behavior, over eating, under eating, the works. Each question on this sheet must be answered in a clear-cut black or white answer, yes or no, when really nearly every question was a shade of grey. “Did you frequently” starts many sentences. “Did you often,” starts many others. It is kind of relative. If it is noticeable is it often or frequent? Does often mean hourly, daily, weekly? Oh crap, I see a seven looming on my horizon.
I continued through my multi hour task of number making and box ticking. These forms use the sneaky strategy of overlapping time frames and questions. One column on another sheet makes you consider frequency and the other column is degree of distress it caused. I find myself at the trauma grand finale sheet checking nearly every trauma with the boxes marked “I witnessed,” or “it happened to me.” I tried to curl my hand over the answers that were so depressing just to look at, let alone experience. The natural disaster column read like a full house on poker night. Earthquakes, check, volcanic eruption, check, fire, flood, and landslides all check. Five yes’ yeah I win, or do I? I realized that the sheer number of atrocities may put a 7 on my form. I felt like I was a new patient at the Dr’s office when they want your family medical history. I try to just make looping circles around all diseases known to man and write “both sides” in bold print. Doctor’s always give me that “God, your screwed” look and try to decide if I would be a profit making patient, or if I will be a problem patient and die in the waiting room, which is not good for business. I have even had some Doctor’s say, “Really?” “No,” I want to reply, “I was just joking about the pancreatic cancer! I just wanted to make you laugh.”
Research assistants now realized that I was a potential wacko, or 7 to them and went by like a binder carrying gawker’s delay. I scrolled out the full spectrum of numbers with a whole lot of twos. Two’s were everywhere though at times I wanted them to be zeros. I had to be honest because dishonesty would help no one. I was here in part due to my Father who died shortly after our summer fishing trip that I wrote of last week. He was a WWII vet who came home with severe nerve damage and what were then termed flash backs, and now would be treated as full blown PTSD. I too, seemed incapable of having a life without some kind of trauma. I keep thinking that this will be my year, but I end up either in column a, “I witnessed,” or column b, “I experienced” the full range of human tragedy. It has been so consistent that everyone begins to question how much can the human brain handle before it shields itself out of self-protection. So that is what they were looking for. They wanted to determine if I had managed to navigate the psychological gauntlet. So every number assigned, every tick mark checked had to be honest. If they felt that I was developing PTSD like my Dad, then I would be a case study in their valuable research. If I was still handling the mountain of trauma in a restricted, but with “normal” brain and emotional responses, then I would be rejected from the study. So it was really a bit of a dilemma. In order to help people like my Father, I needed to be like him, which was to be mentally ill from witnessing horrific crimes against humanity. If I was rejected, I could not help in this study, but it would be a relief to learn that your brain is coping regardless of the onslaught. I wanted to help, but I also wanted to be well.
So two’s remained two’s except for one that was marked in the wrong column. I was finding myself glancing ahead and answering the easy black or white questions first. Thoughts of worthlessness, nope, “0,” suicidal thoughts, “0.” Those were clear and easy for me, but when I returned to the shade of grey questions I would sometimes return to the wrong answer line on this multi page, tiny print form. “Damn,” I muttered as I realized that my 2 could not be made into a zero without being obvious. Add to it that the mistake was in a column that would certainly send up a red flag. It was a question fishing for compulsive disorders that I did not have but now gave the illusion that I was trying to conceal them. Now I was muttering, “oh shit,” to myself as the assistant walked past. Great, now I am talking to myself, and on another pass by I had tears rolling down my face after having to make a detailed account of my recent account of my horrors in Switzerland. I hoped that the binder carrier would go to lunch instead of arriving in the hallway as I was switching answers, mumbling swear words, and crying. It did not help that I had a construction crew rewiring, drilling and installing doors six feet from where I was supposed to navigate my way through these probing questions. Twenty pages of questions about shock, loss, violence, assault, natural and unnatural disaster and how I have handled it.
Luckily the researcher popped on the scene with a drug test cup. That made the entire construction crew disappear. Nothing like a drug test to clear the room. It was some nifty pee, cover, and tip, settle and read gizmo that probably earned the inventor an island in Fiji. I was impressed with its simple design. The sheer poetry where form meets function, its hard to add grace to a pee cup, but someone did it. The red haired researcher walked by elated that I passed. Maybe that was what that long pause followed by a confused stammer was yesterday on the phone. When I told him that I would be in first thing in the morning, maybe he was thinking that there wasn’t enough time for all of the illicit drugs that an artist consumes to clear my system in that time frame. “You sure? Is that ok, (pause) ah, there is a drug test involved.” The topic came back again later in the interview as the pixie like councilor made a little stretch and a hand sweep across the page in an ok, lets make some room gesture. With a pen at the ready she leaned her compassionate mid twenties face to mine in a lets cut to the chase style, asking me to report all of the recreational drugs that I have tried. “Ever,” “never?” Nope. I joke about the fictitious art school award for being the only one to graduate “clean.” She laughed and scrolled an empty set sign in a space that was large enough to list every drug known to man. I may have the traumas, but at least one page was as white as snow.
I probably should have mentioned Kava, and other questionable tribal beverages and chewed fermented things, but I don’t think she was looking for anything made from pounded jungle roots. Last night the colorist that I modeled responded to my mention of exotic travel by mentioning his friend drinking cobra venom somewhere near my usual Indonesian haunts. I smiled back at his inquiry as he pushed to know if I had experienced the same. He seemed a little to eager to learn of its hallucination granting properties and I grew momentarily concerned that he could potentially be under the spell of such potion as he mixed my hair color. Thinking that his friend may have been a bit of a storyteller who really drank too many pina coladas at the Denpasar Hilton and may have thought that the former sounded more adventurous. Or maybe he really did it. Maybe he was briefly adopted into a cobra venom sucking hill tribe in Kalimantan who filed their teeth. He could have possibly donned a penis sheath and sucked down a shot of cobra juice before disembarking in his dugout canoe in Irian Jaya. I could just see the friend he was speaking of. If he looked anything like my stylist, the whole scene would have looked like a Calvin Klein model that had been rolled in mud and placed behind a line of red and white carved war shields with the cobra venom still glistening on his perfect pout. A little bit like a misadventure at an exotic day spa. I chatted about my comparatively innocent Kava experiences that left me numb and dancing till dawn at a seven-day village marriage ceremony on Kandavu. Time to rinse the color before I got to the fermented palm beverages.
It is ironic in this time of upheaval that I would look like a million bucks. I decided to use my well shaped skull to its full advantage by being a hair model once again. Last time I did that was for the Michigan Ave salons back in Chicago. I was their wild card as I had the creative mural painting job and did not want to blend in too much to the relatively conservative Chicago scene. It began right before I left business school and I guess the change in my physical appearance made it clear that I was moving on. The last couple of weeks have again really spoiled me rotten. I go from having hair that had been growing out since mid- summer to the latest cut and color from two different top NY salons. I have to say my baby faced stylist cooed at what a dramatic before and after shot it would be. I wasn't sure how to take that one. It was sort of the same reaction I had while undergoing that Indian eyebrow threading thing. I was sitting there wincing and feeling as though I was shoving my face into a fishing line and trying not to cry. She stopped suddenly after a long look at me and said, is there anything else you want to do? I curled my fingertips under to hide them from her manicure hungry gaze and was going to say yeah, my forehead needs threading. Luckily I was scared of the thread torturing woman, because I stopped short and then noticed that forehead was an option on the menu. How can she complain about me being unkempt when some people come in with a fur forehead. I mean really.
To be continued
I found myself wandering empty hallways and vacated cubicles. It was nearly ten and none of the research staff was anywhere to be found. The locked offices were labeled with area numbers rather than room numbers. It gave a spooky feel to the psychology research, like those top secret mind control experiments that we see movies about. That idea was fresh in my mind as I walked the other night with my Santaland pal. I saw the bridge and candy striped smoke stacks that are featured in a conspiracy theory movie staring Mel Gibson. So two days later here I am walking my way through area 53 and area 54, willingly nonetheless. I find the “area” of the researcher who conducted a phone interview with me. His “area” door had his name scrolled in frantic letters on a wipe board. These were reminiscent of a note left by a hostage in hopes that someone would find their message on the palm leaf.
On the floor there is a much larger wipe board that looks as if it was left out in the rain. Abbreviated disorders in all capitals along with words like screening, submit, internal, funds, chart, flow sheet, 200/year. I wonder what all of this means, as I interpret it more as a conceptual free verse piece rather than medical research. I hear movement nearby and it turns out to be research assistants in pink sweaters and skinny jeans that accelerate their walk ever so slightly in my presence. Boy they walk slowly, “no wonder we don’t find a cure for anything.” I think to myself as they carry one over-sized binder at a time, just to make the magic last. They were walking even slower than the sales staff at Macy’s at break time. I had sat myself down at an empty cubicle near someone’s new laptop. The assistants’ converse and laugh about some female patient they found crying in the hallway. Oh my, this seemed even too harsh for emotionally distant psychiatrists in training. On another pass by they note that she was crying over a potentially life threatening medical condition. Funny stuff in area 53 I thought. I must have given my Grandmother Pearl’s look of death, because one stammered a bit before trying to change the topic. They both grew slightly uncomfortable at the notebook scribbles I was making. It took them twenty minutes to piece together that I was possibly a visiting researcher in mauve pumps. Next pass by they each carried two binders. I feel relieved knowing that the future of psychiatric medical research is in good hands.
I looked again at my watch and realized that I had arrived so early to the deserted building that I never checked the latch on his door. I knocked a cheerful knock to possibly wake him, and then quickly tried the handle. Nope. Another Doctor had scrawled in an equally creepy hand his name and area number on a garbage can. Where are all of these researchers? Were they all taken hostage just moments after lifting a Sharpie to whatever was in reach? I find myself getting restless after a twenty- minute wait, so I browse the pile of children’s books next to the free verse poetry wipe board. I read book titles like Doggies and My Shimmery Fun Time Book. Anyone being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has already been to hell and back, so I cannot picture these books helping all that much. I decide to pick up the phone and dial the researchers extension in case he is in there tied to a chair. I find no dial tone and that doesn’t surprise me considering the fire alarm had been ripped off the wall with bare wires flowing out. Hmm, maybe the line was cut in the hostage taking. At my desk I find a PTSD Protocol sheet. Probably shouldn’t have looked at the form that the Doctors must fill out, as it is pretty bleak summarization of your mental health. It is a 0 to 7 rating for how screwed up someone is, from not messed up to wacko is roughly the scale. Oops, I definitely wished that I didn’t see that. I imagine myself in the clinical trial interview trying to decipher if the Psychiatrist just made a 7 on the page. Was that a 7 or one of those sweeping European ones I would think as I tried to read it upside down. A one would give me roughly a rating of “tweaked,” I could live with that, but a seven would potentially make me the hostage taker. Tweaked would have me writing verse with a Sharpie in a bad hand, but not much more.
The red haired researcher sweeps in several minutes late and doesn’t piece together that I, the person sitting in his area cubicle is his ten o’clock. When I introduce myself as a potential research patient he drops his hands down in a “I am unarmed” gesture while asking me in overly polite, cautious words to “Please step back into the waiting area.” On the phone he had told me to appear at his “area.” Now I am being treated like a loose cannon. I am given about twelve pages to fill out with the top one being a PDSQ test booklet. Boy that was loads of fun as it made you carefully sort through your life looking for personal traumas, encroaching detachment from society, anxiety attacks, panic, isolation and depression rearing it’s head. Add to that compulsive behavior, over eating, under eating, the works. Each question on this sheet must be answered in a clear-cut black or white answer, yes or no, when really nearly every question was a shade of grey. “Did you frequently” starts many sentences. “Did you often,” starts many others. It is kind of relative. If it is noticeable is it often or frequent? Does often mean hourly, daily, weekly? Oh crap, I see a seven looming on my horizon.
I continued through my multi hour task of number making and box ticking. These forms use the sneaky strategy of overlapping time frames and questions. One column on another sheet makes you consider frequency and the other column is degree of distress it caused. I find myself at the trauma grand finale sheet checking nearly every trauma with the boxes marked “I witnessed,” or “it happened to me.” I tried to curl my hand over the answers that were so depressing just to look at, let alone experience. The natural disaster column read like a full house on poker night. Earthquakes, check, volcanic eruption, check, fire, flood, and landslides all check. Five yes’ yeah I win, or do I? I realized that the sheer number of atrocities may put a 7 on my form. I felt like I was a new patient at the Dr’s office when they want your family medical history. I try to just make looping circles around all diseases known to man and write “both sides” in bold print. Doctor’s always give me that “God, your screwed” look and try to decide if I would be a profit making patient, or if I will be a problem patient and die in the waiting room, which is not good for business. I have even had some Doctor’s say, “Really?” “No,” I want to reply, “I was just joking about the pancreatic cancer! I just wanted to make you laugh.”
Research assistants now realized that I was a potential wacko, or 7 to them and went by like a binder carrying gawker’s delay. I scrolled out the full spectrum of numbers with a whole lot of twos. Two’s were everywhere though at times I wanted them to be zeros. I had to be honest because dishonesty would help no one. I was here in part due to my Father who died shortly after our summer fishing trip that I wrote of last week. He was a WWII vet who came home with severe nerve damage and what were then termed flash backs, and now would be treated as full blown PTSD. I too, seemed incapable of having a life without some kind of trauma. I keep thinking that this will be my year, but I end up either in column a, “I witnessed,” or column b, “I experienced” the full range of human tragedy. It has been so consistent that everyone begins to question how much can the human brain handle before it shields itself out of self-protection. So that is what they were looking for. They wanted to determine if I had managed to navigate the psychological gauntlet. So every number assigned, every tick mark checked had to be honest. If they felt that I was developing PTSD like my Dad, then I would be a case study in their valuable research. If I was still handling the mountain of trauma in a restricted, but with “normal” brain and emotional responses, then I would be rejected from the study. So it was really a bit of a dilemma. In order to help people like my Father, I needed to be like him, which was to be mentally ill from witnessing horrific crimes against humanity. If I was rejected, I could not help in this study, but it would be a relief to learn that your brain is coping regardless of the onslaught. I wanted to help, but I also wanted to be well.
So two’s remained two’s except for one that was marked in the wrong column. I was finding myself glancing ahead and answering the easy black or white questions first. Thoughts of worthlessness, nope, “0,” suicidal thoughts, “0.” Those were clear and easy for me, but when I returned to the shade of grey questions I would sometimes return to the wrong answer line on this multi page, tiny print form. “Damn,” I muttered as I realized that my 2 could not be made into a zero without being obvious. Add to it that the mistake was in a column that would certainly send up a red flag. It was a question fishing for compulsive disorders that I did not have but now gave the illusion that I was trying to conceal them. Now I was muttering, “oh shit,” to myself as the assistant walked past. Great, now I am talking to myself, and on another pass by I had tears rolling down my face after having to make a detailed account of my recent account of my horrors in Switzerland. I hoped that the binder carrier would go to lunch instead of arriving in the hallway as I was switching answers, mumbling swear words, and crying. It did not help that I had a construction crew rewiring, drilling and installing doors six feet from where I was supposed to navigate my way through these probing questions. Twenty pages of questions about shock, loss, violence, assault, natural and unnatural disaster and how I have handled it.
Luckily the researcher popped on the scene with a drug test cup. That made the entire construction crew disappear. Nothing like a drug test to clear the room. It was some nifty pee, cover, and tip, settle and read gizmo that probably earned the inventor an island in Fiji. I was impressed with its simple design. The sheer poetry where form meets function, its hard to add grace to a pee cup, but someone did it. The red haired researcher walked by elated that I passed. Maybe that was what that long pause followed by a confused stammer was yesterday on the phone. When I told him that I would be in first thing in the morning, maybe he was thinking that there wasn’t enough time for all of the illicit drugs that an artist consumes to clear my system in that time frame. “You sure? Is that ok, (pause) ah, there is a drug test involved.” The topic came back again later in the interview as the pixie like councilor made a little stretch and a hand sweep across the page in an ok, lets make some room gesture. With a pen at the ready she leaned her compassionate mid twenties face to mine in a lets cut to the chase style, asking me to report all of the recreational drugs that I have tried. “Ever,” “never?” Nope. I joke about the fictitious art school award for being the only one to graduate “clean.” She laughed and scrolled an empty set sign in a space that was large enough to list every drug known to man. I may have the traumas, but at least one page was as white as snow.
I probably should have mentioned Kava, and other questionable tribal beverages and chewed fermented things, but I don’t think she was looking for anything made from pounded jungle roots. Last night the colorist that I modeled responded to my mention of exotic travel by mentioning his friend drinking cobra venom somewhere near my usual Indonesian haunts. I smiled back at his inquiry as he pushed to know if I had experienced the same. He seemed a little to eager to learn of its hallucination granting properties and I grew momentarily concerned that he could potentially be under the spell of such potion as he mixed my hair color. Thinking that his friend may have been a bit of a storyteller who really drank too many pina coladas at the Denpasar Hilton and may have thought that the former sounded more adventurous. Or maybe he really did it. Maybe he was briefly adopted into a cobra venom sucking hill tribe in Kalimantan who filed their teeth. He could have possibly donned a penis sheath and sucked down a shot of cobra juice before disembarking in his dugout canoe in Irian Jaya. I could just see the friend he was speaking of. If he looked anything like my stylist, the whole scene would have looked like a Calvin Klein model that had been rolled in mud and placed behind a line of red and white carved war shields with the cobra venom still glistening on his perfect pout. A little bit like a misadventure at an exotic day spa. I chatted about my comparatively innocent Kava experiences that left me numb and dancing till dawn at a seven-day village marriage ceremony on Kandavu. Time to rinse the color before I got to the fermented palm beverages.
It is ironic in this time of upheaval that I would look like a million bucks. I decided to use my well shaped skull to its full advantage by being a hair model once again. Last time I did that was for the Michigan Ave salons back in Chicago. I was their wild card as I had the creative mural painting job and did not want to blend in too much to the relatively conservative Chicago scene. It began right before I left business school and I guess the change in my physical appearance made it clear that I was moving on. The last couple of weeks have again really spoiled me rotten. I go from having hair that had been growing out since mid- summer to the latest cut and color from two different top NY salons. I have to say my baby faced stylist cooed at what a dramatic before and after shot it would be. I wasn't sure how to take that one. It was sort of the same reaction I had while undergoing that Indian eyebrow threading thing. I was sitting there wincing and feeling as though I was shoving my face into a fishing line and trying not to cry. She stopped suddenly after a long look at me and said, is there anything else you want to do? I curled my fingertips under to hide them from her manicure hungry gaze and was going to say yeah, my forehead needs threading. Luckily I was scared of the thread torturing woman, because I stopped short and then noticed that forehead was an option on the menu. How can she complain about me being unkempt when some people come in with a fur forehead. I mean really.
To be continued
1.13.2008
The River Holds the Memory of Light
Underwater video still from The River Holds the Memory of Light by me, Anna P... camera was repeatedly cast in to the Hudson, swept to the bottom in a current and recast. The video subject is the light refraction that diminishes as the camera is swept away from the sun. When played at 1/4 speed in reverse, the camera travels to the light.It started with a sarcastic comment about finding beauty in the Hudson, but I took it on this week and began my first body of video work in NYC. It all began with a Sotheby's search when I was trying to date the still-life painting that I found. I discovered the work of the Hudson River Valley School who painted with romantic sweeps of light. I thought about how the Hudson was consistently abused and how an entire community fights to bring it back. As I filmed I was surrounded by whispered comments of potential fish life and the continued recovery that it makes. The Hudson is more than a river here in New York, it is a friend. This friend has seen its darkest hour, and now it is on its way back. I know from my own experience that you are most aware of the light as you enter the darkness. This river still holds the memory of light.
1.07.2008
Sea Dreaming
Just going to post a few stills from my video series up in the Grand Banks region. I am learning the video editing software ever so slowly...but just watching the above raw footage made me feel happy. Note to self-must push self to make seductive underwater footage in the Hudson in January
1.06.2008
The Rainbow Trout Waltz
Last night I did the Viennese Waltz and somewhere in the midst of a three count I thought of my childhood spent fishing. There is a link between the events I realized today after three paper cups of coffee. Somehow the music, the adventure, and the dance partner's conversation placed me back in the barefoot summers that seemed endless. I thought at first it was that genteel subtle Mississippi accent which my fellow dance student possessed that made me think of the adventures with my Father. Not to say that a southern accent has anything to do with me directly, or even my Father for that matter. It was a stereotyped perception based on fictitious accounts of a more aquatic southern existence where Huck and Tom would take on the world fearlessly fishing their way through life lessons.
I felt that I needed a bit of Huck's adventurous courage as we entered the museum ballroom where masses of beginners to pros twirled to recklessly fast tempo ed Waltz music. We had caught the last five minutes of instruction before being thrown into the final exam. We were at times clearly swimming upstream as a couple hundred others tried to navigate the space in a variety of styles that seemed to be a sort of montage of dance converged in one room. Whatever move they knew, they were bringing it to the waltz. Dips, double turns and quicksteps were pushed into our fire drill of a waltz. The tempo increased until it seemed that we were trying to evacuate rather than linger.
Many of us felt tricked into a night of ballroom dancing after venturing out ready for belly dance. Quite a switch the museum pulled on us. They had changed the theme and I was initially none to happy. Having immediately felt the need to apologize to my two girlfriends who had agreed to a night of exotic music and art viewing. This was my first unofficial NYC tour with guests that trusted that the the hour plus subway trip would deliver us at a wondrously inspired free night of the kind of dance where no one needs a partner. Now here we were at every ones worst nightmare- a group of waltzing paired strangers.
So what does this have to do with fishing, you are probably thinking right about now. How on earth could my mind become occupied with thoughts of fishing when I was in the midst of high elbowed spins that threatened a blackened eye for someone, possibly even me. I should be concentrating and self defensive, not drifting into childhood la la land. I spun and spun tilting a head back to admire the grand columns that surrounded us like soldiers. Ionic, Doric, Corinthian I pondered as my partner mentioned the appearance of a Lute. The Philharmonic were pulling out all of the stops, they were seemingly well aware that they faced angry mob of disappointed belly dancers and they were going to win us back with Medieval instruments. It seemed to be working. I found my dance partner had a gift for conversation in the same way my Dad once did. I also noted that as I divulged my awe with Northern planktonic seas, that my spins were getting sloppy, and potentially dangerous. By the time conversation drifted to socio-economic relations of the mid Pacific, I needed to be reigned in before my animated waltz injured someone.
The element of reckless abandon was certainly a part of my current flashback. It was my last dance partner of the evening who said it best as he planted his seventy something year old frame solidly so to body check the conga line of dancing teens. He smiled and said to me "and who thought that the waltz could not be vicious." Vicious indeed, I thought to myself as I realized that I was dancing with an elderly psychopath who had grace, style and the blocking moves worthy of the Toronto Maple Leafs. These teens were messing with an already dangerous dance and clearly both they and I had underestimated the elderly. One two three, one two three, one two three check. The waltz lost its innocence last night, but by siding with the ancient aggressor I emerged without a black eye. Others were possibly not so lucky.
Childhood summers hold a bit of that adrenaline pumping perceived danger that last night also brought. They are filled with roller coasters, water slides and frightening encounters with the elderly. Yup that is what summer vacation was to me. My Father himself was in his fifties when I was born, so all of the adventures with him were a bit like venturing with Grandpa. Many of these adventures took place at a local trout farm an hour from our own farm back in the Midwest.
We fished at a small privately owned farm that raised Rainbow trout. Now you could question the ethics of fishing at a farm, but the owner had already thought through this and limited the tools that were allowed. Bamboo pole, no reel and worms only. My Father who was perhaps the greatest sweet talker on the planet would make conversation with anyone and everyone. He was a great connector who could find a common thread that would link him in with every single person he met. As a child I believed that the world was his friend, and in some way that was true. My Dad was a master of baiting the hook with shared experience. Due to this, wonderful worlds opened to us. Often times it came in the form of offers to join picnics or special privileges granted. Going anywhere with my Dad was a backstage pass to the world.
The owner of the trout farm allowed us to use a secret weapon of sorts, chunks of cheddar cheese. Keep in mind this was taking place in Wisconsin, where in my six year old brain, any creature who loved cheese as much as I did was already a kindred spirit. This was our state food. Cheese was our identity. There were some ground rules that went with special privileges. There was of course the before mentioned equipment limitations, but the golden rule was that under no circumstances could "Charley" be caught and eaten. He was the golden boy of the pond. He was giant and old, but most of all he was a fabled fish who was even believed to posses special powers, or at least I tried to further that belief. In my mind I concluded that he might even be a talking wish granting sort of fish. No one really wanted to catch Charley, but every fisherman claimed they did. Even as a child I could see in their eyes that no one wanted nature to be tamed completely, even though this was a farm. We needed to have "Charlies" in the world. Something that was just beyond our reach. A magical creature that humbled us with its ability to captivate and its ability to evade.
With this being a farm, there was always work to be done. My special duties were to feed the baby fish in the far corners of the green. They were tiny splashes of life in swimming pool sized ponds. I took great pride in my chores. Other children would sneer as I got to cross under the "off limits" rope and saunter along on the dangerous side of the farm. This was the side with tall grasses and tree house type trees. These duties also held danger with warnings to "not fall in." The fish farmer and my Dad would cheerfully send me off on my duties like two reckless Grandfathers closing with the line, "Don't let Charley get ya!" They would laugh and tip a Pabst Blue Ribbon and I would be on my way thinking to myself, "boy if I could only be so lucky." I could potentially be kidnapped into his magic world of deep clear water swimming around in a miniature sea of rainbow sided creatures where I could live out my days in mermaid style.
In order to reach my feeding ponds I had to take a long walk around the great pond where we fished. That was Charley's pond. I would attempt a sort of child espionage, poking my head through cattails and reeds at the far end of the great pond to see if I could catch sight of him sunning himself at the surface, or possibly even having a conversation with a peer. I would sprinkle cheese chunks as gently as I could in hopes that Charley would think that there wasn't a human nearby, but rather that it was raining cheese. This technique I figured would make him go about his normal activities and allow me the opportunity to see him and possibly befriend him. I hoped that he could forgive me for the fish friends that I had consumed in my short life. I made sure that my hands were visible so that he would know immediately that I was unarmed. I kept the fish feed bucket near in hoping too that he would consider my baby fish feeding a sort of penance for my dining past and depending on the afternoon, potentially my future.
You can pretty much guess where this story is heading. One day, of course Charley reveals himself. But before we get to that there are a couple of things to know about him. He was rumored to be colossal, but no specifics were given past a few grand sweeping arm gestures. I would test this theory by placing ever greater sized cheese curds on the hook, and then slowly lowering them into the deep. I knew that these multi-ounce chunks would call out to The Great Charley, and sure enough there would be a ripple on the waters surface and your hook would be cleaned in record time. I also had no fear in actually mistakenly hooking him. I looked at it as a sort of paying reverence, making cheese curd offerings to this pond God. One for you, one for me as the cheese curd bag emptied between the great fish and his siren in training.
It was the last fishing trip of the season when Charley decided to thank me in his own way. I had decided to forgo my usual half bag of cheese so that he could have more. Winter would be coming and all the animals needed extra girth so to survive. Not that he needed anymore weight. I estimated him to be roughly the size of a smallish Loch Ness Monster. Lets just say that I was not disappointed that day when several minutes after emptying a double share of cheese onto his mouth, he lept in full glory with the sunlight reflecting metallic rainbows as he turned before splashing down again in a tremendous thud. My Pabst drinking babysitters panicked that it was me that fell into the pond. I heard my name called out, but I was unable to muster much of a response after witnessing the trout rising like a Phoenix out of the cheese curds.
The three of us stood on opposite sides of the pond as the concentric rings radiated from Charley's epicenter. We all knew who could make rings like that. I think that was the only day I ever saw my Dad drop his beer. I made my way back to meet up with the fish farmer and Dad. I was stumbling through the tall grasses yelling "Did ya see him, did ya see him!" No they hadn't in fact seen him, but unless I has capable of throwing a twenty-five pound shot into the middle of the pond, that had to be him. Charley had granted me my wish, even though we never got to have the conversation I so hoped for. He revealed himself only to me his muse, while strategically leaving undeniable evidence in the form of a giant wake that made my fish story the unquestionable truth in the history of the trout pond.
So that is the kind of story that swirls in my head as I Viennese Waltz my way through life. I think about how conversationalists open up worlds of adventure to me. How these dance partners were not unlike my father who considered whoever he encountered to be a friend in the works. This search for shared experience was what my father used to bait in a stranger to a place where their worlds would combine into long talks and laughter, snowmobile rides and even giant jumping fish. So while the Lute was played I was reminded of how lucky I am to have inherited this ability to talk to anyone about anything from my dad. It is my security blanket that I carry around the world with me. My final word to the Lute wielding Philharmonic is thank you for not being a belly dance band. I would not have had this experience unless I was able to three count my way through fascinating conversations with strangers.
I felt that I needed a bit of Huck's adventurous courage as we entered the museum ballroom where masses of beginners to pros twirled to recklessly fast tempo ed Waltz music. We had caught the last five minutes of instruction before being thrown into the final exam. We were at times clearly swimming upstream as a couple hundred others tried to navigate the space in a variety of styles that seemed to be a sort of montage of dance converged in one room. Whatever move they knew, they were bringing it to the waltz. Dips, double turns and quicksteps were pushed into our fire drill of a waltz. The tempo increased until it seemed that we were trying to evacuate rather than linger.
Many of us felt tricked into a night of ballroom dancing after venturing out ready for belly dance. Quite a switch the museum pulled on us. They had changed the theme and I was initially none to happy. Having immediately felt the need to apologize to my two girlfriends who had agreed to a night of exotic music and art viewing. This was my first unofficial NYC tour with guests that trusted that the the hour plus subway trip would deliver us at a wondrously inspired free night of the kind of dance where no one needs a partner. Now here we were at every ones worst nightmare- a group of waltzing paired strangers.
So what does this have to do with fishing, you are probably thinking right about now. How on earth could my mind become occupied with thoughts of fishing when I was in the midst of high elbowed spins that threatened a blackened eye for someone, possibly even me. I should be concentrating and self defensive, not drifting into childhood la la land. I spun and spun tilting a head back to admire the grand columns that surrounded us like soldiers. Ionic, Doric, Corinthian I pondered as my partner mentioned the appearance of a Lute. The Philharmonic were pulling out all of the stops, they were seemingly well aware that they faced angry mob of disappointed belly dancers and they were going to win us back with Medieval instruments. It seemed to be working. I found my dance partner had a gift for conversation in the same way my Dad once did. I also noted that as I divulged my awe with Northern planktonic seas, that my spins were getting sloppy, and potentially dangerous. By the time conversation drifted to socio-economic relations of the mid Pacific, I needed to be reigned in before my animated waltz injured someone.
The element of reckless abandon was certainly a part of my current flashback. It was my last dance partner of the evening who said it best as he planted his seventy something year old frame solidly so to body check the conga line of dancing teens. He smiled and said to me "and who thought that the waltz could not be vicious." Vicious indeed, I thought to myself as I realized that I was dancing with an elderly psychopath who had grace, style and the blocking moves worthy of the Toronto Maple Leafs. These teens were messing with an already dangerous dance and clearly both they and I had underestimated the elderly. One two three, one two three, one two three check. The waltz lost its innocence last night, but by siding with the ancient aggressor I emerged without a black eye. Others were possibly not so lucky.
Childhood summers hold a bit of that adrenaline pumping perceived danger that last night also brought. They are filled with roller coasters, water slides and frightening encounters with the elderly. Yup that is what summer vacation was to me. My Father himself was in his fifties when I was born, so all of the adventures with him were a bit like venturing with Grandpa. Many of these adventures took place at a local trout farm an hour from our own farm back in the Midwest.
We fished at a small privately owned farm that raised Rainbow trout. Now you could question the ethics of fishing at a farm, but the owner had already thought through this and limited the tools that were allowed. Bamboo pole, no reel and worms only. My Father who was perhaps the greatest sweet talker on the planet would make conversation with anyone and everyone. He was a great connector who could find a common thread that would link him in with every single person he met. As a child I believed that the world was his friend, and in some way that was true. My Dad was a master of baiting the hook with shared experience. Due to this, wonderful worlds opened to us. Often times it came in the form of offers to join picnics or special privileges granted. Going anywhere with my Dad was a backstage pass to the world.
The owner of the trout farm allowed us to use a secret weapon of sorts, chunks of cheddar cheese. Keep in mind this was taking place in Wisconsin, where in my six year old brain, any creature who loved cheese as much as I did was already a kindred spirit. This was our state food. Cheese was our identity. There were some ground rules that went with special privileges. There was of course the before mentioned equipment limitations, but the golden rule was that under no circumstances could "Charley" be caught and eaten. He was the golden boy of the pond. He was giant and old, but most of all he was a fabled fish who was even believed to posses special powers, or at least I tried to further that belief. In my mind I concluded that he might even be a talking wish granting sort of fish. No one really wanted to catch Charley, but every fisherman claimed they did. Even as a child I could see in their eyes that no one wanted nature to be tamed completely, even though this was a farm. We needed to have "Charlies" in the world. Something that was just beyond our reach. A magical creature that humbled us with its ability to captivate and its ability to evade.
With this being a farm, there was always work to be done. My special duties were to feed the baby fish in the far corners of the green. They were tiny splashes of life in swimming pool sized ponds. I took great pride in my chores. Other children would sneer as I got to cross under the "off limits" rope and saunter along on the dangerous side of the farm. This was the side with tall grasses and tree house type trees. These duties also held danger with warnings to "not fall in." The fish farmer and my Dad would cheerfully send me off on my duties like two reckless Grandfathers closing with the line, "Don't let Charley get ya!" They would laugh and tip a Pabst Blue Ribbon and I would be on my way thinking to myself, "boy if I could only be so lucky." I could potentially be kidnapped into his magic world of deep clear water swimming around in a miniature sea of rainbow sided creatures where I could live out my days in mermaid style.
In order to reach my feeding ponds I had to take a long walk around the great pond where we fished. That was Charley's pond. I would attempt a sort of child espionage, poking my head through cattails and reeds at the far end of the great pond to see if I could catch sight of him sunning himself at the surface, or possibly even having a conversation with a peer. I would sprinkle cheese chunks as gently as I could in hopes that Charley would think that there wasn't a human nearby, but rather that it was raining cheese. This technique I figured would make him go about his normal activities and allow me the opportunity to see him and possibly befriend him. I hoped that he could forgive me for the fish friends that I had consumed in my short life. I made sure that my hands were visible so that he would know immediately that I was unarmed. I kept the fish feed bucket near in hoping too that he would consider my baby fish feeding a sort of penance for my dining past and depending on the afternoon, potentially my future.
You can pretty much guess where this story is heading. One day, of course Charley reveals himself. But before we get to that there are a couple of things to know about him. He was rumored to be colossal, but no specifics were given past a few grand sweeping arm gestures. I would test this theory by placing ever greater sized cheese curds on the hook, and then slowly lowering them into the deep. I knew that these multi-ounce chunks would call out to The Great Charley, and sure enough there would be a ripple on the waters surface and your hook would be cleaned in record time. I also had no fear in actually mistakenly hooking him. I looked at it as a sort of paying reverence, making cheese curd offerings to this pond God. One for you, one for me as the cheese curd bag emptied between the great fish and his siren in training.
It was the last fishing trip of the season when Charley decided to thank me in his own way. I had decided to forgo my usual half bag of cheese so that he could have more. Winter would be coming and all the animals needed extra girth so to survive. Not that he needed anymore weight. I estimated him to be roughly the size of a smallish Loch Ness Monster. Lets just say that I was not disappointed that day when several minutes after emptying a double share of cheese onto his mouth, he lept in full glory with the sunlight reflecting metallic rainbows as he turned before splashing down again in a tremendous thud. My Pabst drinking babysitters panicked that it was me that fell into the pond. I heard my name called out, but I was unable to muster much of a response after witnessing the trout rising like a Phoenix out of the cheese curds.
The three of us stood on opposite sides of the pond as the concentric rings radiated from Charley's epicenter. We all knew who could make rings like that. I think that was the only day I ever saw my Dad drop his beer. I made my way back to meet up with the fish farmer and Dad. I was stumbling through the tall grasses yelling "Did ya see him, did ya see him!" No they hadn't in fact seen him, but unless I has capable of throwing a twenty-five pound shot into the middle of the pond, that had to be him. Charley had granted me my wish, even though we never got to have the conversation I so hoped for. He revealed himself only to me his muse, while strategically leaving undeniable evidence in the form of a giant wake that made my fish story the unquestionable truth in the history of the trout pond.
So that is the kind of story that swirls in my head as I Viennese Waltz my way through life. I think about how conversationalists open up worlds of adventure to me. How these dance partners were not unlike my father who considered whoever he encountered to be a friend in the works. This search for shared experience was what my father used to bait in a stranger to a place where their worlds would combine into long talks and laughter, snowmobile rides and even giant jumping fish. So while the Lute was played I was reminded of how lucky I am to have inherited this ability to talk to anyone about anything from my dad. It is my security blanket that I carry around the world with me. My final word to the Lute wielding Philharmonic is thank you for not being a belly dance band. I would not have had this experience unless I was able to three count my way through fascinating conversations with strangers.
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