Llorona/ Quetzalcoatl boa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E7wgUTKM0c&feature=related

Oh goodness!

So, for the last week I've been working on what might be the first (completed) piece I bring for the residency. This is my fancy new Quetzalcoatl boa! (Please excuse the quality of the pictures- My mom can't hold a cellphone steady to take a full body shot for scale. Let's just say the details are small, but the entire piece is, well, fluffing in at about 8 feet long.)

Quetzalcoatl is/was an ancient Meso-American snake/bird god. According to the Wikipedia article- "Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of Venus ((the planet)), of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge." Also he's supposedly the god with the white beard who may or may not have been a conquistador and/or Jesus reincarnate according to the Mormons. Complicated creature, evidently.

However, this is me, and I happen to think the idea of a snake/bird god, possibly a similar to Hermes-style intermediary between the Gods and us, is just COOL. I've been tinkering with the idea of a sort of puppet accessory for sometime, and this form particularly lends itself to that. I had been envisioning adding more vertebrae into the interior structure, but I decided against it as it would effect the drape too much.

About two years ago, maybe 3, I came across the Llorona video excerpted here. I was already familiar with the Quetzalcoatl story, and blown away by the music. I also really like the clouds hanging from puppet strings, and may have to steal that idea at some point as well.

Boas (and, coincidentally, tutus) were the first thing I've learned how to make via You Tube. They require quite a lot of time in front of the T.V (Father Goose, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Pirate Radio, Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark, 1st 2 Episodes of Life in Cold Blood, 1st 2 episodes of Blue Planet....), and quite a bit of the living room (as you may get to see if I can get the picture to load...).

The skull is made, as you might be able to figure out, from masking tape and wire, and made controllable with an old set of test-tube holders. It isn't exactly true to form, but the important parts (fangs, sinuses, jaws) are all there with some degree of accuracy. The rattles, similarly, are from a silver butter knife, Mikey's caps, bells, and more masking tape. I find masking tape to be one of my favorite media...

So, for those of you paying attention, a while back I was thinking of making lots of boas to wrap around people... Still thinking about it. Making these gaudy, fluffy things is extremely rewarding, if time and financial asset consuming. This one included masses of ribbons, about 16 yards of tulle, flower petals sewn onto ribbons, fake poppies, 8 colors of plastic beads, rick rack, scrap fabric.... and it's gorgeous, I love it. But now that I have it, I'm not sure I really needed it.

That, I think, is a blog-post for another time...

Damn Baseball...

It's been one of those Portland days where you can't tell what time of day it is because it's completely overcast. Add that to the fact that I have no west coast teams left to care about for the rest of the season & I'm not attending Hardly Stictly Bluegrass...

And then there's a man on a bike in a chicken suit! Hooray!

Ok, the 2 things I did like at TBA were Rude Mechs "The Method Gun" and Andrew Dinwiddie's "Get Mad at Sin." Both of these were, actually, pretty traditional seeming theater pieces, in our odd American theater traditions.

Rude Mechs is a collaborative theater group out of Austin, and really what the performance was was a beautifully choreographed, manipulative one act play. I had been having a discussion earlier in the week about all the gimmicks that bore me about contemporary theater. Audience participation, breaking the 4th wall, senseless nudity for shock value, discussion of an audience's role to make them feel like part of the action... All these things that often are no longer provocative if you've seen much theater.

I also talked about the over-use of the standing ovation- how everyone gets a standing ovation just for going on stage these days. I think it's caused by a combo of the American Idol phenomena and also that we, as a culture, seem to want to encourage people to have high self-esteem. It's a strange audience "do unto others as you would have do unto you" thing.

Anyway, I wasn't ready to eat my words, and they were forcibly rammed down my throat for the entirety of the performance, right through the moment where I jumped out of my seat to applaud. There was a great dance scene involving a role of packing tape that was wonderful, as well as a well-used paper-mache tiger, who I think I have a crush on. Anyway, this work is still touring, so I feel like I shouldn't say more. But if you're in Austin, or anywhere else these guys perform I'd highly recommend it.

"Get Mad at Sin," was a supposedly pitch perfect rendition of a sermon recorded by Jimmy Swaggart, an early tele-evangelistic type. &, as someone who hasn't had a lot of experience watching such sermons it was really just eye-opening it its strangeness. I know a lot of folks who found it offensive- I just found it like a relic of another era. A far gone era. And that's what made it interesting, that it was a historical document made fleshy. Maybe it wasn't standing ovation worthy, but it was damn interesting and really well made.

Both works, actually, were remarkable in their professional-ness. It was easy to trust these performers, to run away with them, because they so clearly knew where they were going. Unlike most of what I saw at the festival, these people were, well, rehearsed. And it was a relief. As interesting as it is to watch the human-ness of, for example, Sue Koh, somehow I'm beginning to appreciate the control apparent in directed performance.

All the Sours in the Day

The culmination of the TBA festival was what was billed as 24 hour performance by notorious Mike Daisey. There was a lot of build up for the event- even a drink named for it available at the well-attended bar outside. I admit, it was my kind of drink. Pick your booze (whiskey, gin or vodka) and then they squirted random amounts of 3 gourmet, home-made sours into it and stirred it around. A very tasty version of Gin and Juice, basically... Anyway, there are no pictures of the drink, because after a week of drinking to stay entertained I was completely out of cash dollars.

I attended "All the Hours in the Day" & was grateful for the Voodoo Donuts (yep, some had Tang on them, there were quite a few cock & ball donuts, and bacon maple bars, but no Nyquil to be had) & also for the frequent breaks. Because it wasn't just a performance piece. It was also an improv piece. I don't know how many people are capable of improv-ing on no sleep, but I don't think Mike Daisey should be counted as one of them. His voice was pure monotony and his tangents driveling. He was a lot like Garrison Keiler without charm or purpose, lost in Lake Wobegon. I respect him for trying to mix it up (We are outside while a fire alarm goes off in the picture). Every once in awhile he would trudge into clearly more rehearsed material, and then my ears would prick with interest. But most of the time he was clearly forgetting where he was in the unsuccessful narrative.

But the performances during the breaks? Awesome. Especially Holcombe Waller. But for 10 minutes over every hour there were real experiments going on, the first I'd seen all week. Some dance troups got up and choreographed onsite. There were short videos that were actually really interesting in my sleep deprived state.

Just goes to show, when you least expect it great work can sneak up on you.

Video Art is for Wusses!

One of the few works that really grounded me during TBA was the video "Europleasure International, Touch and Go," by Christina Lucas. It was fairly high quality slow-motion video shot of people throwing rocks at a large empty building, as well as the glass falling from the windows on the inside. Old and young people throw the rocks, some pull up in cabs to throw them. Clearly, people had to bring their own rocks. No one throws very well, and I also noticed for the first time that there is a difference between how Europeans throw rocks and Americans throw rocks. You could tell none of these old men had ever hurled a baseball, that they were all cricketers. At the end, the camera pans back from the building to display the words "Touch and Go" spelled out by the broken windows. I loved going into the nearly quiet space (just mellow orchestral music for the sound) and watching the glass fall over and over and over again. Such a needed break from the throngs of intoxicated, over-dressed and slightly trendy people milling about outside.

I was out on a date with a guy a friend of mine thought I would like, and it was not going well. One of the indicators was that the gentleman in question brought up this video, and tried to speak informatively about it. I was listening, and kinda nodding along (he was so impressed that the camera had captured so much detail, that people let themselves to be filmed vandalizing a building, blah blah blah...) when I realized he hadn't seen the words. "Oh," he said "I must not have seen that part." How did you miss it? I wondered. It's the longest shot in the film. "Well, it was a long film." About 15 minutes, maybe? "How many times did you watch it?" Oh, I had to admit... probably 12 times. "You spent 3 hours watching windows break?"

hmm, is that odd? It was on for over a week. It was quiet and beautiful and free. And, most importantly, no one was watching it with me most of the time. I could just relax, surrounded by slow, muted and marvelous.

WC Beck and the Ford Building

Too Long, I know!

So, the papers are really taking it out of me. I think I'm done with the one for this month, but, SHEESH! I'm not sure! I have a great editing team, including my mom, who drove about 500 miles out of her way to help me out. (And go to the Nicki McClure show- http://www.nikkimcclure.com/ Y'all should check her out, cut paper wonderment) Anyway, I've done almost all my writing here at the Ford Building coffee shop in scenic (if not always sunny) Portland, Or. Right now there's a kick-ass blue grass band playing, and I'm trying, very hard, to think about art work.

Recently I attended nearly all of the events at the local happening "TBA"(http://www.pica.org/tba/) One of which was a dragqueen cabaret guy named "Taylor Mac" (http://www.taylormac.net/TaylorMac.net/Artist_Statement.html)(I'm sure I can get a few more links and parentheses in here if I try...) Anyway, Mr. Taylor Mac was a little bit over the top for me. It was one of those performances where I left feeling played, which is not how I like to feel. Bits of the performance have stuck with me (luckily, unlike the next night, where he ripped off duct tape underwear). Most notably, he made a great argument, for something I'm going to put in it's own paragraph.

In Taylor Mac's almost words (because, did I write it down? No!) "Comparison is the gentlest form of violence." Which had never, I swear, occurred to me. The way we critique in art skuul- "Have you looked up so and so? Your work is similar to such and such-" the pigeon-holing, the niche-ing... No wonder it never feels good. As Mr. Mac explains it- Whenever you hear "oh, you're work is like Tiny Tim, cuz you play Ukelele" a huge knife goes through the universe, cutting you away from a lot of what you love. Even if you are getting compared to some one really great, like David Bowie, hey, you aren't getting compared to Ravel, so, you know SLICE! there goes half of what you love. Even genres are a little like ritual tattooing- maybe you don't want to be stuck with those marks forever, and yet, there you are!

I've been tarred with the "Drag" brush. Taylor Mac called how we were all dressed at his performance "Audience Drag," which was pretty funny. Of course, none of us were wearing sequins on our faces. But we were all kinda dressed alike, safety in resembling each other. Our costumes of well prepared Oregonians- long pants and tee-shirts, rain coats and flip-flops. Anyway, all my research into drag, and exhibitionism, has been really depressing me.

I was told by my advisor to read "Infinite Variety" about Marchese Luisa Casati, a very rich Italian lady from about 100 years ago. And though the book is entertaining, it's like a shallow, well-researched gossip column. Then the Marchese did that with black and white marble, wild animals and nudity. The best part so far has been the introduction by Quentin Crisp. He described exhibitionism as being like a drug, which I agree with. Needing to be ever more outlandish to get your fix. Which is not, at all, where I am, or where I've been for years. Maybe, maybe, as a teen. Since then it's been more about self-satisfaction.

I have no desire to make people look at me. I want to be satisfied by how I feel in what I'm wearing. How I look, how I am perceived, is not interesting. & I have no idea how to express that in a costume, since, of course, how I feel has a lot to do with how I appear to myself (not in a mirror, but in looking down at myself). I learned a long time ago that the people that were attracted to my physical appearance, especially in a desirous sense (as Casati's seem to be) are generally assholes. But those who want to be inside the costumes, on the other hand...

And with that... the beer is flowing, the band is fantastic, and I think I'll be right here, right now.

Do you understand any of this?

After I had finished with the prescription films and readings, I had Nick and Nora fest. I watched "After the Thin Man," "Thin Man Goes Home," "Another Thin Man," and "Shadow of the Thin Man," This image is from "Another," I believe, and is a great scene in which Nick and Nora are presented with Nora's estate's yearly estimates as a threat. Nora asks Nick "Do you understand any of this?" and Nick, detective and new father, tries to decipher something about a logging company, maybe? Their patter is so cordial, so civilized, and yet she clearly can tell that he's at sea. They arrive at the mutual conclusion that to protect her financial adviser is in both their best interest, but there is no argument. I thought with our country's finances being what they are, it would be good to look at an image from a depression era movie of 2 supposedly rich people not knowing what was going on with their finances.

Another wonderful moment comes in "Home" where Nick is lying comfortably in a hammock when Nora comes out to sit with him carrying a cleverly folding lawn chair. It's actually very slapsticky as she tries to carry on both a conversation with her husband, and figure out this complicated piece of furniture. Eventually she gets it to resemble a chair, tries to sit in it at the same moment she is concluding her side of the conversation, and promptly the chair collapses. All this time, Nick is watching with nothing but amusement and admiration all over his beaky face. He does eventually get up (there are protests from Nora) and helps her with the chair, which she then eyes with suspicion and does not try to sit in again.

These parts of old films really interest me. The congenial, witty way men and women were supposed to relate to one another. I've been trying to devise a way of making these small, black and white short films, with lavish costumes and strange sets, where that kind of wit could once again be demonstrated. Not with any other plot, just the casual, intimate, character driven moments that punctuate old films.

Angry Flamingos

So, sometimes I draft these posts, and then something goes wrong with whomever's computer I've dredged up to use, and the damn things never get published! Quelle Domage! Anyway, this is the first of apparently 3 of those posts...

Recommended on that lovely list of things I had to look up were the movies of Kenneth Anger (Specifically "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), and also John Waters, (specifically "Pink Flamingos"). Being the obedient student that I can sometimes impersonate, I made it through both. I had to turn the Director's Commentary on, and occasionally poke myself, to stay awake, but I did!

Kenneth Anger does make amazingly odd, sometimes short, films. He has been doing so for something crazy, like 75 years. I am surprised I had never heard of him, especially since I have had to sit through class discussions of Matthew Barney's work frequently. It's pretty obvious watching "Inauguration" where the "Cremaster" B.S. comes from. A drug laden, sleepy man in heavy make up, swallowing jewels makes his way through a series of rooms and performs several tests. There are angry, transforming female characters, repetitive, obnoxious noises, dream sequences and overt sexual bizarreness. There is symbolism everywhere, but none of it seems to be exactly culturally referential, instead more imagined. However, this is very low tech, filmed in someone's house, and there's a wonderful integrity to it that I find lacking in "Cre."

I made it through about 11 of Anger's films, and by far my favorite involved a midget dressed in 17th century clothes running through an Italian water park. His wonderfully creative, simple film making could have used more editing, but was absolutely gorgeous. I almost wished pieces were run slower, and that I was just able to leave them on in the background, almost as still photographs rather than films.

The opposite was true of "Pink Flamingos," as anyone who has seen it possibly could attest. I have a lot of respect for John Waters. I love him in interviews, and think that his passion for making films can't be matched. But, as it was intended to, the film just grossed me out. As much fun as I could tell they were having making it, I really wouldn't have gotten through it without the commentary. Mr. Waters was constantly telling side stories that were much more fun than the actual film. One was about the trans-gender flasher,"Government would pay for your tits, but you had to pay for your snatch yourself," I believe was the quote, "And now she's living in the Mid-west, has a couple of adopted kids. Nice Girl! I wonder if she ever watches this movie..."