Things Learned, with Thanks

Connecting with people was a great byproduct of this two week Brechtian experiment at Hospitalfield AIR in Arbroath, Scotland. I’m not one for small talk and there wasn’t much room for it in the conversations had around this body of work. It was revelatory to observe my co–collaborators as things about themselves were revealed to themselves by themselves.  Looking at yourself as a painting and writing about yourself in the third person produced a few aha moments for all of us. And working with people - some of whom were not visual artists- to create a mark to physically sum up a shift in mindset made me reevaluate mark making in my own work.

I’m excited by the results but also realize that they are transition works. The work has a very linear, narrative, prescribed feeling;  “See Dick and Jane” primers come to mind. You can almost pick out the steps of the process without me explaining them to you. This leads me to wonder how the components of the process could become a more cohesive whole. How to incorporate that gesture? How to incorporate a text into the body of work more fulsomely? How to show the work of shift and changing one’s mind  in one body rather than two?

Nonetheless: here are the four pieces that transpired over the two weeks of applying Brechtian theatre techniques. Much thanks to Martha Orbach, Marilyn Longstaff and Laura Collins for your time, friendship and openness.