Fertility Suit 2

Fertility Suit 2, Anna Peach, Invasive seeds (Job's Tears) on clothing.

This piece is part of the exhibit at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu that runs through 1/12/2009.

Camouflage Performance

I have just received an acceptance email that will allow me to perform in a festival this month. If you are in the New York City area and would like to participate in 'Camouflage' please go to the 'complete profile' section (seen at right side of screen) and email me.

Below is an exerpt from my explaination that I provided for the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu

"... measuring approximately 131”x131” It is a piece of government issue desert camouflage that I have altered by adding hundreds of hand cut pieces of Hawaiian shirts. These shirt pieces were then hand tied to the existing camouflage to create a quilt like effect. I originally got the idea when I discovered that Honolulu lei makers were put to work during WWII making handmade camouflage. I thought of the phrase that we hear so frequently, that a family has ‘military ties.’ I decided to make a more palpable interpretation by utilizing used clothing to represent the people of Hawaii, and hand tying this representation in place. "

I later learned that entire buildings in Honolulu were covered in handmade camouflage so to try to make the city look like the jungle.

Most of you that know my earlier Hawaii pieces know that I frequently use the idea of camouflage as a reference to species self-preservation. It has become another way to tie us back to the earth for our own sakes.

Japan

This is an article that came out ages ago, but with all of my travel it was never posted. If you click on the image, you should be able to read it (in Japanese.)

The Ocean is my Bathtub/The Bathtub is the Ocean

Video stills by be, from the video of the same name. 2007 Newfoundland

Planktos Reinstalled

A few months back you may recall my adventures in the windswept north eastern Atlantic ocean. I was lost in the changes of the ocean and captivated by the vertical migration of comb jellies, naked sea butterflies and zoo plankton. Not to mention the bubblegum pink krill. Although I feel a world away from that as I stumble through the streets of NYC, I realized that I have the sea right here with me in the form of 125 videos and these cork, silk, bone and cotton constructions that I gave the Greek name 'Planktos' to. You may remember that they were a part of the environmental show that I was a part of at Eastern Edge Gallery in Newfoundland. When the original piece sold, I found myself desperate to try to find the nearly obsolete cork floats that were one time a staple there. Cork is gone, we have destroyed the cork trees and now plastic sits in it's place. The original cork I found under the slipway tangled in a 50 fathom Herring net. It was my secret haunt between the tides and also between prying glances of one of the other artists who decided that whatever I began collecting, she would as well. So I had to sneak about and show only my trusted comrades Aleks and Grant as well as my 10 year old neighbor boy. I mean only the most trusted friends will appreciate me showing up at their door with a bucket of cod skulls, some mermaid's purses and a variety of flotsam. Ah those were the days. The rain in NYC leaves me wishing that I was watching the crashing waves, but for now I will sleep beneath my Planktos mobile.

Waterhorse

One of my projects here at the residency was based around the folklore character named a Kelpie, or Waterhorse. I cast the bottom of a boat in kelp, making a skeleton of the vessel. The timeline made it impossible to cast the entire boat, but it is still the size of the window in which it hung. It is interesting to have to move house with it, a big sheet of woven dried seaweed wrapped in the style of a ball gown, as a friend noted. I cannot leave it behind. Not yet. It is like fragile parchment with it being most beautiful when the light is allowed to shine through it. It is like a shield and a church window in one.

I laughed to myself at the whole struggle to not abbandon it even though moving from one new house to another, and now it traveled a bit by car. There are just some things that are so impractical to be moving around with, yet they bring a peace that justified the act. In a way, the Waterhorse is a net and within it I have caught the sea with its scent and mysteries revealed in its amber light.