Yesterday I had led my own critique with some people newer than me in the program. I ended up using Curtis' advice about if you tell the person what you are about to show them, but then they react "Oh!" then you've done your job. if they just say, "Yep that's what it is," then we didn't even need the photo/painting, etc. Because some of her work did that, but most of it didn't, so I helped her figure out why some of it was more successful than others. She said it was very helpful.
Then I had two more critiques of my own. One was with a guest critter and my friends, and the other was with a faculty member and some other students I don't know as well. The first crit went well and everyone read the poetry thoroughly before entering the room. The main piece of "advice" was to think about how to hang the messy pieces differently, instead of in the corners, why not all out in the room, why not more horizontally suspended? Why were they in the exact places that they are in. All valid. Christine and Bina had some really interesting insights into how the poetry reinforced and influenced the meaning of the piece in really interesting ways. And it is really interesting how I never could have planned it, but the poetry uses words that conjure similar things in the work. Like I talk about "silent ears" in one, and everyone feels the need to be very quiet when they enter the space, another talks about being "darker and heavier" which is obvious, and another talks about reaching out and finding nothing but air, and people do kind of walk around the room with their arms outstretched because they can't see, etc. My friends told me later that they were glad it was so dark in the room because they started tearing up listening to my description of the work. But you couldn't tell because of the darkness. My friends also said, "Jaime, I can't believe how much you have grown, listening to you talk about your work in there...it was amazing and if your review goes half that well, you have nothing to worry about."
The second critique with Eshrat and she asked me a bunch of questions and I felt I handled it ok, like why knitting, why cyanotype. She wanted me to turn on the lights and she felt it was better that way and she could really appreciate some of the finer details in the knitting that way. But really, you can see those details in the dark, you just have to work harder, which fits with my whole conceptual whatever, it's hard work to focus on the pretty aspects of life. Eshrat also gave me a headsup about something. Mario was wondering as he looked at it. He wanted to know if the big holes in the knitting were supposed to be vaginal. Eshrat was kind of pissed off that he even asked it, but didn't know for sure to correct him. But listening to me speak today confirmed it for her. She said, "I don't care how gay or liberated a man claims to be..." and she trailed off.
Then the field trip....
Then we climbed into a legit school bus, my first time ever, and took a hour and a half ride over to what seemed like the middle of nowhere, tucked into winding mountain roads in the middle of lush green trees and undergrowth on par with any rain forest. We walked in knee-high grass out to a sloping hill and this is where the Bread and Puppet takes place. At the top of the hill is the edge of a forest. Bread and Puppet is apparently in reference to "bread and circus" which was an expression in the old roman days where the rulers would give the peasants bread and entertainment (circus) to stop them from revolting. They would say with condescension, "Just give them bread and circus" so it's very much like the "let them eat cake." This place has been going on for more than 50 years and has grown into a large attraction for artist types. You can do a summer residency there and help build puppets, write plays, and be a performer. We get there and the performers are all like these weird cult members wearing all white and many of them with peach fuzz shaved heads. They had a real brass band that played songs like, "putting on the ritz," "when the saints go marching in," and "down by the river side." Christine, Bina, and I plopped down on a large blanket on the grass and waited for the show. It was very hot and uncomfortable, we were kind of dying on the inside, at least I was. We were all dressed light and summery. Then the clouds started rolling in and thunder and lightning, then otherworldly buckets of rainfall poured down on us. We huddled under the blanket hoping it would pass in a minute, but it kept going and going. Everyone was soaked, some people embraced it and danced in their soaked clothing. Others were running back to their cars. We were completely soaked like we had jumped into a swimming pool.
Sure enough the rain stopped right about the time we got up to find shelter. But it never really stopped, it kept starting and stopping throughout the rest of the experience. We elected to miss some of the performance and go to the barn which is a museum that hold 50 years of puppets. It was totally creepy, these puppets are grotesque, dark things that give you the heeby-jeebies. Bina called them demonic, and I tend to agree. They are also well-known for their elaborate print-making studio, and much of their gift shop is filled with handmade prints. Their manifesto is "cheap art" and are dedicated to making art accessible.
We went back to the performance toward the end and after the show they tell you to go up into the forest. We all walk into the forest and there are these creepy as hell things coming out. The part on the hill is called the circus, with short vignettes written by the people in residency, the show up in the forest is still performed and written by the original guy that started this whole thing. There sat an old man with a long white beard and violin. It was all very abstract, such-suchness, and these puppets off in the distance of the woods called the sleeping dead. It was still raining on and off and we could never really get dry.
Then phase three of the show was out on this huge field that was lower than the audience up on a hill. This was actually the best part, with dramatic clouds, thunder, lightning, and fitting performances that seemed to conjure ancient battles with groups of people moving towards each other on this huge battle field. they played bugles and snare drums that would eerily echo across the field and the forest behind. Six or so people would man a bird puppet and run as fast as they could across the field, the two on the outer edge lowering and raising their poles to make the bird's wings flap, all of them cawing and making bird noises. Some where, performers did those Buddhist mantra droning sounds which only added to the mystery.
Unfortunately, this is when I decided to have a serious case of the "church giggles" as some people were calling them. I just couldn't stop laughing. These performances were so ridiculous and yet they were so serious, and the weather and being soaking wet for hours, and exhausted from this whole residency. I just lost it. I haven't done that in a long time. Bina, Christine, this guy named Chris who takes us to Walmart whenever we want, huddled under Chris' golf umbrella which fit all of us if we stood close.
I hardly got any pictures of the performances because it was raining too hard, and I didn't want to risk my phone or camera getting wet. You can't make this stuff up folks.
Oh yeah, and at the very end, they served bread, baked from scratch in their stone ovens on site.
—3 days until graduation—
Then I had two more critiques of my own. One was with a guest critter and my friends, and the other was with a faculty member and some other students I don't know as well. The first crit went well and everyone read the poetry thoroughly before entering the room. The main piece of "advice" was to think about how to hang the messy pieces differently, instead of in the corners, why not all out in the room, why not more horizontally suspended? Why were they in the exact places that they are in. All valid. Christine and Bina had some really interesting insights into how the poetry reinforced and influenced the meaning of the piece in really interesting ways. And it is really interesting how I never could have planned it, but the poetry uses words that conjure similar things in the work. Like I talk about "silent ears" in one, and everyone feels the need to be very quiet when they enter the space, another talks about being "darker and heavier" which is obvious, and another talks about reaching out and finding nothing but air, and people do kind of walk around the room with their arms outstretched because they can't see, etc. My friends told me later that they were glad it was so dark in the room because they started tearing up listening to my description of the work. But you couldn't tell because of the darkness. My friends also said, "Jaime, I can't believe how much you have grown, listening to you talk about your work in there...it was amazing and if your review goes half that well, you have nothing to worry about."
The second critique with Eshrat and she asked me a bunch of questions and I felt I handled it ok, like why knitting, why cyanotype. She wanted me to turn on the lights and she felt it was better that way and she could really appreciate some of the finer details in the knitting that way. But really, you can see those details in the dark, you just have to work harder, which fits with my whole conceptual whatever, it's hard work to focus on the pretty aspects of life. Eshrat also gave me a headsup about something. Mario was wondering as he looked at it. He wanted to know if the big holes in the knitting were supposed to be vaginal. Eshrat was kind of pissed off that he even asked it, but didn't know for sure to correct him. But listening to me speak today confirmed it for her. She said, "I don't care how gay or liberated a man claims to be..." and she trailed off.
Then the field trip....
Then we climbed into a legit school bus, my first time ever, and took a hour and a half ride over to what seemed like the middle of nowhere, tucked into winding mountain roads in the middle of lush green trees and undergrowth on par with any rain forest. We walked in knee-high grass out to a sloping hill and this is where the Bread and Puppet takes place. At the top of the hill is the edge of a forest. Bread and Puppet is apparently in reference to "bread and circus" which was an expression in the old roman days where the rulers would give the peasants bread and entertainment (circus) to stop them from revolting. They would say with condescension, "Just give them bread and circus" so it's very much like the "let them eat cake." This place has been going on for more than 50 years and has grown into a large attraction for artist types. You can do a summer residency there and help build puppets, write plays, and be a performer. We get there and the performers are all like these weird cult members wearing all white and many of them with peach fuzz shaved heads. They had a real brass band that played songs like, "putting on the ritz," "when the saints go marching in," and "down by the river side." Christine, Bina, and I plopped down on a large blanket on the grass and waited for the show. It was very hot and uncomfortable, we were kind of dying on the inside, at least I was. We were all dressed light and summery. Then the clouds started rolling in and thunder and lightning, then otherworldly buckets of rainfall poured down on us. We huddled under the blanket hoping it would pass in a minute, but it kept going and going. Everyone was soaked, some people embraced it and danced in their soaked clothing. Others were running back to their cars. We were completely soaked like we had jumped into a swimming pool.
 |
| right before the rain began. |
Sure enough the rain stopped right about the time we got up to find shelter. But it never really stopped, it kept starting and stopping throughout the rest of the experience. We elected to miss some of the performance and go to the barn which is a museum that hold 50 years of puppets. It was totally creepy, these puppets are grotesque, dark things that give you the heeby-jeebies. Bina called them demonic, and I tend to agree. They are also well-known for their elaborate print-making studio, and much of their gift shop is filled with handmade prints. Their manifesto is "cheap art" and are dedicated to making art accessible.
We went back to the performance toward the end and after the show they tell you to go up into the forest. We all walk into the forest and there are these creepy as hell things coming out. The part on the hill is called the circus, with short vignettes written by the people in residency, the show up in the forest is still performed and written by the original guy that started this whole thing. There sat an old man with a long white beard and violin. It was all very abstract, such-suchness, and these puppets off in the distance of the woods called the sleeping dead. It was still raining on and off and we could never really get dry.
Then phase three of the show was out on this huge field that was lower than the audience up on a hill. This was actually the best part, with dramatic clouds, thunder, lightning, and fitting performances that seemed to conjure ancient battles with groups of people moving towards each other on this huge battle field. they played bugles and snare drums that would eerily echo across the field and the forest behind. Six or so people would man a bird puppet and run as fast as they could across the field, the two on the outer edge lowering and raising their poles to make the bird's wings flap, all of them cawing and making bird noises. Some where, performers did those Buddhist mantra droning sounds which only added to the mystery.
Unfortunately, this is when I decided to have a serious case of the "church giggles" as some people were calling them. I just couldn't stop laughing. These performances were so ridiculous and yet they were so serious, and the weather and being soaking wet for hours, and exhausted from this whole residency. I just lost it. I haven't done that in a long time. Bina, Christine, this guy named Chris who takes us to Walmart whenever we want, huddled under Chris' golf umbrella which fit all of us if we stood close.
I hardly got any pictures of the performances because it was raining too hard, and I didn't want to risk my phone or camera getting wet. You can't make this stuff up folks.
Oh yeah, and at the very end, they served bread, baked from scratch in their stone ovens on site.
—3 days until graduation—
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