video
performance
installation
event
Seated in front of my laptop on a bolster, a rolled blanket beneath each knee, coffee steaming from my battered Niagara Falls mug, I face the screen, where my friend Sara looks back at me. We are excitedly discussing the possibility that our conversations, which began in 2021, have expanded beyond the digital realm of Google Meet and into the gallery space. Sara and I met in an energy work immersion course, trading healing sessions back and forth over the phone. From there we began exchanging video calls, talking about our lives and witnessing one another through difficulties and triumphs. She is one of my closest friends, even though we have met in physical reality only one time, in Virginia at the southern terminus of Shenandoah National Park.
Sara’s dad had been sending her photos of potatoes, and now she was sending them to me. In the picture, I could see that he was planting them in a long deep trench alongside a row of leafy greens. Upwards of 70 potatoes were about to be tucked into the earth. Some were already sprouting long shoots from their eyes, so eager were they to begin the process of making more potatoes. Soon they would be covered with dirt, and in that buried space of darkness, the magic of creation would fully take hold.
Sara’s dad’s potatoes
The growth pattern of potatoes is as follows. Each potato has somewhere between two and ten buds (“eyes”) arranged in a spiral pattern around its surface. As plants grow from one or more of the eyes, their leaves manufacture starch that is transferred to the ends of underground stems (“stolens”). The stolens thicken to form tubers. At the end of the season, the leaves and stems die, and the new tubers (“potatoes”) detach from the stolen that they formed on. A single seed potato is a robust package of stored starch, capable of feeding the early stages of growth for as many as four or five plants. Those plants, in turn, can produce three to four pounds of potatoes.1
two potato
Barely a week into my first semester of grad school, I found out at a vet appointment that my beloved companion of fourteen years, an Australian Shepherd named Cassidy, was in a dying process. That day, I lay on the floor stroking the familiar length of her body. Then, I got up and drove to campus to teach a college class for the first time. I remember this time period feeling very full. There were so many new logistical and administrative elements entering my life at once, and at the same time I was learning to administer subcutaneous fluids and monitor conditions in my one-woman doggy hospice operation. I did what I could to follow along with the academic program, but my heart and my energy were with Cassidy, savoring our final days together, and then happily adjusting when that time stretched into weeks. She died at home on a beautiful morning in October. My friends Christiana Laine, Cameron Delicious and Zarah Ackerwoman were there, and helped me create a meaningful ceremony and burial ritual that I documented in photographs and hung on the wall in my studio.
The summer before grad school began, Zarah and I had taken a road trip to the Hudson Valley, and a plan had begun to emerge for a performance, mostly as an opportunity for her to wear a potato costume. We sketched out a narrative centered around two roles that we guessed would feel therapeutic to embody. She would be the sexy potato, cavalier, magnetic and slightly deranged. After effortlessly and thoughtlessly capturing the heart of my character, the hopeless and debased “potato lover,” we would unite briefly in ecstatic, mashed-potato-lubricated coitus, before collapsing into the screaming pain of existential emptiness. While traveling, we started creating a backing track for the performance, a mashup of Phil Collins’ hyper-theatrical “In the Air Tonight” and Ghost Town DJs’ 90’s dance hit, “My Boo.”
At night, I think of you
I want to be your potato, baby
On October 30th, 2021, Zarah and I performed Potatoes Macabre at the Crunehaus Halloween show. We performed outdoors in front of a projected video loop of my hands mixing a large bowl of potato salad. I was still raw from Cassidy’s death, and it felt important to embody this character, who represented some half-darkened aspect of self. In the performance, my face was obscured and made horrific by a tight mesh pepperoni-pizza-print mask, over which I applied dark lipstick slowly in a strained compromise between threat and eroticism. My pantomimed coupling with Zarah straddled a similar line between sex and violence. I wore a lumpen tan dress and dirty platinum blonde wig, so that I was potato-like, but alas, not a potato. My tap shoes punctuated my jerky movements, but I did not dance.
The performance took me out of my comfort zone and felt truly cathartic. The psychological material I was working with was heavy, but the process of making the work had been lighthearted, playful, and supportive–Zarah and I goofing off with a voice modulator and discussing the ideal mashed potato consistency for spreading on each other's faces and bodies. The performance was a positive moment during a very sad and difficult period. When it came time to present artwork for semester reviews, it felt natural to continue to focus on the life-giving energy of humor and play that this ridiculous performance had engendered.
The video and installation I created, titled Love Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry, was received with quizzical acceptance by my committee. The work was interesting, compelling, and visceral, but also cryptic and difficult to penetrate. The question on everyone’s lips was “why potatoes?”
MORE POTATOES MACABRE
I was frustratingly unable to answer this question. For me, the work was about the process. The process of being a human, and being alive, and living through loss. And having a friend offer me a weird lifeline that led to the creation of a thing that now, since I’m in graduate art program, I am presenting as a product called “art.” The potatoes were part of that process, and as such, they played an important role in shaping it and the performance and video that were birthed from it. The best I could explain was that they were collaborators or, at the very least, a muse.2 Potatoes aren’t neutral. They are a plant laden with rich histories, culinary and cultural associations, specificities of growth and reproduction, nutritional and healing properties. Symbolically, these many-eyed yet unseeing dwellers of the dark felt like an appropriate usher into the shadowy underworld realms of my psyche. My explorations via the “potato lover” character gave me a way to channel my grief, rage and loneliness into the earth and feel connected with my recently deceased friend.
three potato
Now that I have made a series of artworks inspired by potatoes, people send me potato memes and photos. It is widely known that I am the appropriate party to inform in the wake of meaningful or enchanting encounters with this humble yet enduring tuber. It is funny how certain things stick. Not everything does, and you rarely know in advance what will. I find relationships to be like that. You interact with someone once, and you might never interact again, or you might suddenly look back and find that you’ve shared many long years together, growing in the depth and certainty of your care for one another.
synchronicities
In spring 2014, I created my first performance art piece. At the urging of a visiting critic in the post-baccalaureate program at PAFA, I put aside the obsessive drawings of a rabbit that I was doing and sewed myself an incredibly creepy rabbit costume so I could “find out more” about this character. My rabbit suit was made of white fleece and boasted a wide droopy ass and no discernable eyes. Although I had created it for an interactive installation in my studio, I took great pleasure in wearing it in public on the long walk from my home in North Philly to campus. On my way back from the studios, it was raining, and I rushed along a shortcut that meanders across the berm of a freeway service drive. There, in the rain-soaked grass, lay a tattered copy of The Runaway Bunny, my favorite book as a child. I scooped it up and continued my wet walk home, electrified by this unlikely confirmation that I was on the right path.
Some people aren’t that interested in events like this. They are easy to explain away as coincidences, or as examples of what is known in psychology as the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. The favored example for Baader-Meinhof, also known as the frequency illusion, is when you buy a car, and then all of a sudden, you start to see your new car everywhere. Attention has been awakened in your primary visual cortex by the image of your car, which holds value to you. That image now gets separated more easily from the unending stream of sensory data that we are subject to but cannot fully process. Maybe finding the Runaway Bunny book was just a really specific example of this type of mental process. It would be easy to brush it off. But not for me. My first costumed performance was an act of playful vulnerability that involved a loaded symbol from my childhood. The fact that this act was followed by an immediate encounter with a physical object that was directly related to this symbol and its exact context does not feel random to me. I choose to see this, and so many other experiences like it that have occurred since, as affirming and meaningful.
One potential understanding of creativity is that it is a deeply intentional form of pattern-recognition and connection-making. From this perspective, I imagine that artists, writers, and musicians speak varying but related languages of abstraction and allusion. We are not all equally skillful at employing these languages to move and be understood by others, but we are all trying, in our own ways, to forge some sort of deeper connection between our own idiosyncratic version of experience and that of the viewer/perceiver, who stands outside of us and who we wish to welcome in. This is one way that I exercise my craft and my personal agency–by allowing myself to create meaning by weaving together the seemingly disparate threads of my existence.
requiem
After my deep dive into themes of darkness, death and decay with the “potato lover” character, I set out to create a counterpoint for her. The “flower dancer” was inspired by imagery associated with light, life and growth, but I hoped that each character would challenge the positive/negative associations so often ascribed to these sister aspects of bodily existence. This theoretical exploration became the basis for my video piece requiem. My process with requiem involved a lot of trust, and a very complicated spreadsheet. The video came together in phases, shepherded along via a rigorous process of moving back and forth between making and writing that Lauren Kalman was offering in that semester’s Graduate Studios class. Each step felt like I was walking into the unknown.
The high point was the twelve-hour shoot with Cameron Delicious, and our trip to 7-11, hustling to fill two rolling coolers with Slurpee's, my face an insane mess of sweaty drag-style makeup mid-afternoon on a Thursday. But I knew it was going to be ok. Because on my way to pick up Cameron that morning, I had taken a different route than usual, and I had passed a house I’d never seen before that looked uncannily similar to the cardboard miniature I had created as the setting for the story I was about to tell.
There was so much footage, and I edited it sequentially, in a way that made sense to me. The video features lots of complex visual effects, so there was a steep learning curve. I went down a deep rabbit hole for a week, breaking only to eat and sleep, lost in the details. It was spring, and on one especially beautiful day, I decided it would be ok to emerge and have a visit with Cameron and Zarah. We smoked some weed in the garden, and then I invited them in to see my progress. As I watched alongside them, it was as if I too was seeing the video for the first time. A feeling rose in my chest that was new to me–a deep heartfelt recognition and pride in myself for creating this thing. I felt somehow that it was the first thing that I had truly created for myself and not for anyone else, and that no one could take my love for it away from me. I had no idea while I was making Requiem that it was a ritual that would tell the story of my own transformation and rebirth. But as I sat next to Cameron and Zarah, the power of what I created unfurled before me, and I laughed and cried with joy, gratitude and relief.
MORE REQUIEM
Somatic storytelling
At the same time as I was working on requiem, I had begun to plan a workshop with my fellow graduate students to further explore the potential of a model for healing through somatic storytelling.3 The workshop follows the same process I engage in when I create my own video and performance works, but in a simplified and abbreviated format, designed to produce results in the minimum amount of time. The version I did with grad students lasted 8 hours, including an hour-long lunch break. We began with introductions and intention setting, and then dropped more deeply into the body via a series of gentle movement and vocalization exercises. These practices are intended to bring about an energetic shift that allows participants to achieve a depth of presence within stillness. Next, I led a guided meditation that culminated in a journey to find the character or archetype that they would be embodying in our upcoming performance.
Rising in silence, we transitioned into an automatic writing practice to record and expand upon any observations we had in the trance state about our characters, their motivations, and other details. Then we came back into a circle to share our findings with each other, and to work together to uncover and build upon the narrative or series of actions that would guide the ensuing performance. This conversation included discussions around physical and emotional boundaries and strategies for care during performance. We created a "safe word" that anyone could say to alert others that the performance needed to pause. This conversation flowed into a long lunch break, allowing for casual group bonding, time alone, or a walk outside, if desired. We came back together for an hour of crafting, creating rudimentary costumes, props, and a set. Then it was time for the performance, followed by a return to the circle to share experiences, offer gratitude, and close the space.
By all accounts, the workshop was productive and illuminating. Students who participated felt they could move through whatever personal material came into the space with them effectively, while also maintaining a comfortable degree of privacy around that material's specifics. To document this experimental process as part of my course of study within the MFA program, participants consented to the recording of the performance portion of the workshop. Our feedback session was audio recorded with consent, and then transcribed. Here are a few quotes from the feedback session:
This felt like a ripple of a moment, something that will resonate outward. Today felt like a more productive day than I’ve had all semester because it felt like getting to know and access a part of myself that I might be skirting around.
[This was a way of] getting to the center–we spend a lot of time trying to answer questions but not a lot of time being shown how to get to the answer. Getting to the answer requires getting past the censors, past the question. They don’t teach us how to get past the thinking part of us that is trying to scratch through the floorboards with a safety pin instead of digging in the ground with a shovel.
It goes back to trying to experience it. I’ve never actually tried to embody [in this way]. It was a very loving, intimate, easeful embodiment. I wasn’t concerned even though right before you started the camera, I had no idea what I was going to do, and we didn’t talk about it. The knowing that we access in a flow state is a divinely creative part of ourselves that institutions can tend to shut down. I haven’t had this type of flow state ever. It was cool.
Participants said the workshop felt authentic, easy, and flowing. Each stage revealed more about the characters/archetypes they had created--what they meant, and why they had been chosen. It provided information and illumination around personal circumstances that each participant was processing at the time of making. The space allowed for acting without second guessing or filtering oneself, putting aside inhibitions that come up around taking up space, or how others perceive you, that get in the way of authentic expression. The performances allowed for the liberating embodiment of qualities or expressions that we tend to self-censor. In addition to these general wellness benefits resulting from the workshop, participants felt that, as artists, everyone's performance embodied a feeling that is also what they are trying to get at with their art but that is beyond verbal expression.
spaghetti western
spaghetti western was a big turning point in my time in the MFA program. So much changed for me during those three years. I lost my dog, who was my best friend, and in facing the space she left, I chose to learn how to trust people more. I learned how to edit videos and stepped into the role of director in my projects. In that role, I developed a sense of authority that had been elusive for me in my life. Spaghetti Western was a large-scale production composed of complex live performances, outdoors, shot as just a few continuous takes. The video concept was highly political–a fever dream turned nightmare of American gluttony and consumerism. It featured Uncle Sam as a manic child on stilts and ended with a pile of flesh suit-clad bodies writhing naked in food scraps.
spaghetti western was not my first large-scale production, but in the past, I’d always paid participants at least a small stipend. I have strong beliefs about the way that creative work is valued in our society, and I have always felt it was important to embody my assertion that artists deserve to be paid. But there was a part of me that resented this because I wasn’t getting paid, or else I was spending everything I did get paid paying others. With Spaghetti Western, I wanted to see how it would feel if my super talented friends all agreed to do something with me for free–out of mutual desire, and mutual benefit. I was amazed by the positive response I received–in the end, 25 people participated in the creation of the video. People took on their roles—from food stylist to choreographer to performer–and made them their own. It was incredibly validating to experience so many people being willing to come together in support of my concept. I began to realize that I have a knack for organizing and motivating people and creating containers in which others’ talents and abilities can shine.
I also learned that the more I could let go of control and trust others to hold their own pieces of the production, the more fun everyone was able to have on set. I still struggled during the making of Spaghetti Western to feel at ease. In fact, my stress-induced acid reflux was so bad during filming that I was regularly burping up small amounts of vomit. Part of this, I know, is because my desire for aesthetic control was still strong for this video. I wanted to replicate what I could see in my head, and at the end of the day, I was afraid to assert this desire fully and be perceived as overly controlling when I wasn’t paying anyone to participate. But I did have fun at the shoot. I let go and was present with the joy I felt at this surreal production coming to life in a public park.
MORE SPAGHETTI WESTERN
portal
After spaghetti western, the sense of confidence and authority that came from directing started to translate into other arenas in my life and creativity. I felt more comfortable talking about my work and asking others to collaborate with me, and I began to trust that the spaces and projects I was creating had a positive intention and would attract the right participants. I began collaborating with Jackson Gifford (aka Bccording), a musician and Art History student, after a fall 2023 studio visit. First, he and I made the original audio for spaghetti western. Then I asked him and his friend Hansen Francisco to work with me to complete portal.
portal was a continuation of the exploration I had initiated in my somatic storytelling workshop with my fellow grads. Inspired by the theme of ecstatic union with nature, I invited a group of undergraduate dance students to participate in a semester-long workshop exploring environmental grief, connection and belonging.4 We met, shared conversations and movement practices inspired by these themes, and brought what we discovered in that space into video shoots. The resulting footage was intended to be developed into a video that would visually center the psychedelic merging of nature and body that first appeared in my earlier video requiem, and that I wanted to explore more deeply. After seeing a video that Hansen had created for one of Bccording’s songs, I had started to mull over the possibility of passing the editing of portal on to him. I felt his editing style was much freer than mine and that he might have an interesting visual take on the psychedelic imagery I hoped to create with the workshop footage. I also really liked the idea that both Hansen and Bccording were in their early twenties, like the dancers, so the project would feature the talents of a group of young people, organized and directed by me. I explained the concept to Hansen, and sent him a bunch of reference imagery, and then we checked in several times over the course of the editing process. I felt a deep sense of relief passing this final part of the process on to him. I wanted to keep letting go of things.
MORE PORTAL
THESIS SHOW
When it came time to plan my graduate exhibition, that feeling of relief was top of mind, as I pondered ways to apply the larger conversations I had been engaging in around authorship and value within the space of a gallery exhibition. I kept coming back to the image of the gallery as a house, for several reasons. First, I feel that my creative work engages with and affects all areas of my life. In dreams, the house is a metaphor for the body of the dreamer, and it seemed fitting that the various videos I’d created would be situated within rooms based on the area of my life that they grappled with. I felt this might create an additional line of understanding for viewers, since this layout would (second) allow them to reflect on the personal meanings and memories contained in these spaces as they navigated the installation and watched my videos. Third, it would reference my family legacy in the home building industry–a nod to some of the roots of my creativity, as well as my persistent desire to question and dismantle that which has come before.
The first iteration of the house concept functioned mostly as an elaborate display space for my video works. I envisioned creating walls for all the rooms and then decorating each room using a combination of new materials and the recreated sets from video projects. But when I stepped back and thought about it, this didn’t seem right. It felt too obvious–like a low budget copy of the video installation strategies I had seen in the past (exemplified by artists Alex DaCorte and Pauline Curnier Jardin, whose work I deeply admire). I could also tell that even the “low budget” version of this plan would cost me thousands of dollars and involve an enormous amount of personal effort to create. One of the core lessons that my practice has been trying to teach me is how to let my work be enough, instead of constantly overextending myself trying to get more praise and attention. Engaging thoughtfully with collaboration has been an important strategy to counter this tendency. It allows me to work productively with my desire to control, to learn how to ask for help and trust others, and (as I discovered while making spaghetti western) it also provides a form of internal validation around the ideas, process and outcomes within my work.
A conversation with fellow grad student Megan Grierson-Deshields helped me come up with a new plan for my exhibition space–one that felt more integrated with the core of my practice and its prioritization of collaboration and healing. Instead of a static display, I aspired to create a changing, shifting environment that would include my work, but also feature the creations of others. I wanted the space to engage students and faculty across the Wayne State campus, as well as artists from outside the school. As I stated in my initial proposal:
The space created by THESIS SHOW is iterative and reflective, a sort of ephemeral town square for the exploration of the potentials and limits of creativity, play and collaboration. Participants are invited to become a part of the space, bringing their own needs, desires, goals and ideas to intersect with those of the community. The aspirationis that the space will become its own functioning ecosystem, growing, changing, and allowing participants to envision, build and shape a new reality together.
The process of inviting in collaborators for THESIS SHOW proceeded organically. I did a lot of outreach, and then trusted that the responses that came back would be enough. Four students recommended by the Instructor Lea Fox expressed significant interest in the project (Mary Neid, Richard Zinter, Lea Siefert and Joseph Cook), and I guided them in the process of creating work for the space, based on the themes that they witnessed in my video works. Interestingly, they all chose to create participatory installations, so their work ended up providing multiple points of entry for audience engagement within the space, creating another unintended layer of collaboration. Omar Gonzalez (a former student of mine) and Joey Nyugen assisted with installation, along with my friend Keely Snook, who flew in from Brooklyn to help me create the Waterfall Cabinet Portal. Christiana Laine created the Nap Room and Cameron Delicious and Vanessa Cronan provided additional works (Light Language and Comfort Worms) to round out the space.
The nap noom was inspired by an empty studio space within the Graduate Studios that had a mattress and a cot in it. Initiated by Ephemera Fae, a former graduate student who experienced frequent idiopathic seizures and needed a cot close to their studio. When Ephemera graduated, taking their cot with them, the school's administration required that my mattress also be removed. The nap room got me through my first two years in the MFA program. It had been a critical place for me and other students to take breaks–to rest, cry, or connect privately without having to leave the studios. On one occasion, I brought friends from outside the program into this space–Christiana Laine and her young friend Heather Delaney. We were all going through a rough patch and this intense and memorably timed meetup was an impromptu attempt to offer support to one another. Right before installation for THESIS SHOW began, Christiana and I received word that Heather had died. She was a deeply creative and unique spirit. Christiana was devastated at the loss of their close friend to addiction and mental health struggles. After the funeral, they began work on the nap room, letting the creative process meld with their grief, and offering the space as a dedication to Heather, and to the critical social importance of making space for rest, grief, support and care.
I was already aware of numerous beneficial aspects of my collaborative practice prior to this installation. There was the practical benefit of accomplishing work on a larger scale than possible alone. There was the emotional benefit of receiving a kind of implicit internal validation for projects via the agreement of others to participate. There was the aesthetic benefit of showcasing a multiplicity of styles and perspectives, and the surprises and synchronicities that often come from letting go of control and allowing things to flow. During the installation of THESIS SHOW, I came to understand that I was also receiving a benefit from the physical presence of others in the space with me. I noticed that during times when I was alone in the gallery, I felt anxious and fearful and was mentally fixating on the idea that I was pressed for time and might not finish. When people were present, working on their own installations and in groups, the fears melted away and I felt calm and secure. It wasn’t so much that I felt reassured that the work would be completed. It was more that they refocused me on what felt important in all this–the creation of a space to come together and have an experience of free self-expression. My nervous system responded positively to having these people who I trusted in the space with me. Because I was not putting temporal or aesthetic pressure on their work, they felt calm and were enjoying themselves in their process. I was able to co-regulate with them, so that some of the benefits of the supportive container I was creating for others came back to me.
I felt so grateful for these practices, and the ways that they were reshaping my understanding of what is possible in both art and life. I wanted to honor the contributions of everyone involved in the creation of the space and the work within it. I had been researching and experimenting with how to present collaborative works in an effective and transparent way. The strategy that felt best in this instance was to have handwritten labels that could be created in the space as it evolved, as well as a wall of acknowledgement with room to add names as needed. There was a single printed gallery label at the entrance to the space, designating it as “THESIS SHOW, a collaborative mixed media installation.” I chose this title because I wanted to highlight the inversion of expectations and norms that came from hosting this shifting, growing creative zone within the white walled gallery space.
MORE THESIS SHOW
four (potato)
The process of creating THESIS SHOW was clarifying on many levels. It helped me to see better what was at stake in my work, and how I might move forward and continue to cultivate areas of growth while releasing outworn patterns that I don’t need anymore. It also had me thinking about potatoes again–trying to somehow quantify or articulate the lessons I was learning from this plant. I was wondering if potatoes might be a pretty good symbol for my art. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that their growth process feels like it could be a stand-in or analogy for one of the ways art functions.
My first time showing vanitas at reviews, in Spring 2023, I brought home the potatoes that encircled the mirror, because they had begun to sprout. I wondered what would happen if I planted them in the dilapidated raised bed in my front yard. This was not the first time I tried to grow vegetables as part of an artwork. Back at PAFA, my bunny performance had been accompanied by a work titled grow, in which I sowed carrot seeds in a small container of earth equipped with a grow light in my studio space. The carrots didn’t even sprout, but the potatoes grew vigorously. In the fall, I dug them up, moved by the generous yield they provided despite a complete lack of care and watering. They were exquisite–tiny with delicate flesh. I brought them to a garden party I organized in my neighborhood, where I tossed them in olive oil and salt and grilled them over an open fire I had started in an earthen pit until they were crispy and cooked through. Then I passed them around to everyone at the party, enjoying the reactions as people consumed this simple but delicious staple that was loaded with significance, at least to me. It was the story that made it so special–the lineage behind these potatoes, all the things they had touched, in my life and in others to make it to that place–to that moment of enjoyment. What does it mean to plant a thing in the soil? To ask it if it can create life? If it can truly feed people?
What has the significance of “story” been in my own work? How can I begin to draw out the fact that what is most enchanting to me is the process, and the long line of connections and synchronicities that each new phase and movement of creating evokes? The endless potential for weaving a web of mystery around the mundane facts of living is what keeps me in thrall. In THESIS SHOW, the layers of work within the space functioned a bit like a game of telephone. There was the original message, encoded within the intricate videos that I had created, like small maps of my own healing that only I could decipher. And then there was the invitation to others to take those messages and make something of their own inspired by it. And those invitations begat new invitations. And really isn’t any visit to an art show an invitation to be inspired to create or imagine differently, based on what you just witnessed?
I think there is something distinctly “tuberous” about this way of understanding the world. Like the potato, that which begins with a single eye, can ultimately support the growth of many eyes. The hard-won nourishment that takes a season to accumulate can sustain more than an individual–it can be shared and distributed, and in that process the benefit multiplies. From the beginning, potatoes were trying to show me a new way of being–one that prioritizes staying open and trusting that there is beauty and nourishment in the ongoing process of growing and living. They were showing me that the value of my work is in the other lives that it touches, the way it inspires, sustains and gives permission to those who encounter it.
1.International Potato Center Website
MasterClass. “Tubers vs. Rhizomes, What’s the Difference?” MasterClass.com June 7, 2021. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-are-tubers
Peterson, Cass. “One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato…More!” The New York Times, April 20, 1997
2. For more on this perspective of plants as potential collaborators, and the value of seeking wisdom and connection with the “more-than-human" world, see Abram, Kimmerer, and Morton
3. This model owes a debt to many educators and performers I’ve encountered over the years. A good part of its formulation took place during my time at PAFA, when Mark Blavat introduced our post-bacc cohort to Samuel and Evelyn Laeuchli’s mimetic mythmaking process. It also includes elements from movement workshops with dancers/Butoh practitioners Eiko Otake, Vangeline and Jacqueline Marie Shannon, and the performance artist Linda Mary Montano. My study of Transformative Energy Work with Kenneth Jover, and the theoretical grounding of Peter Levine’s classic text, Healing Trauma were also deep influences in this process.
4. My perspective here was again informed by the works of Abram, Kimmerer, and Morton, and included techniques and processes offered in the Spring 2022 Somatic Storytelling workshop with grads, recontextualized to specifically address themes of environmental grief and belonging.