Bread and Puppet

Sept 18, 2009
Johnson, Vermont

Lily, Whitney, Jacqueline and I ventured into the NorthEast Kingdom today to pay homage and a visit to our magical darling Peter Schumann, a man who looks like he walked out of a fairytale. Peter Schumann is the founder and director of the Bread and Puppet Theater. The Bread and Puppet Theater is a politically radical puppet theater (with puppets made out of paper mache) active since the 1960's. Peter and a few troop members came to the Studio Center last week and graced us with a performance.

Ever since I first laid eyes on Peter Schumann at lunch last Saturday, I have been enamored and fascinated by him. During last Saturday's performance, Peter performed a "sermon" about the paper mache religion and I maybe heard 5 sentences out of the entire sermon. I could not take my eyes off of Peter, words lost meaning and only his presence mattered.

The Bread and Puppet Museum is a 3 story barn that houses all the paper mache puppets from shows that has been retired. What is inside the barn is INCREDIBLE! Peter came out and chatted with us for a little while and showed us the Paper Mache Theater with the Dirt Floor Cathedral. A barn that has been turned into a theater space with all the walls and ceiling covered in paper mache figures and drawings. Birds and chipmunks reside in the paper mache theater along with all the magic that Peter conjures.

The experience of this visit left all of us speechless. Please excuse the lack of grace this blog entry has as I have been struggling for hours trying to describe what we witnessed today in that 3 story barn. Words are insufficient, or maybe I simply lack the grace and skill to wrangle that magical magnificence we experience in that 2 hours into paragraphs that makes sense. What can be put into words is that there is a 3 story barn and it is filled with paper mache puppets. The puppets were used for political protest and performance and some of the puppets are 10 feet tall. What those sentences do not convey is the beauty and depth that has been expressed in these puppets, in the art that Peter and The Bread and Puppet Theater created.

Before we went out to the NorthEast Kingdom today, Whitney has asked me to justify why I am so fascinated and set on (even before I meet Peter) going to the Bread and Puppet theater. Whitney had though that the puppets were made of bread (which would have been awesome) and after discovering that the puppets are not made of bread, she demanded that I back up my interest. I am fascinated because I love puppetry. I am fascinate because paper mache is such a simple material, played with mostly by children, not "serious" art material used by "serious" artists. To have an entire museum filled with nothing but paper mache puppets, what is not interesting about that?

So much anguish and injustice are expressed in the puppets. So much beauty, longing and desire for equality and a better world is told through the puppets. The form so simple. The materials basic and cheap. Yet the artistry that the puppets are made with, the expression...In that barn, I was offered beauty that broke my heart. I am humbled. All of us were brought to our knees. All of this desire for something more, equality, justice, even perhaps revolution, in contrast with Peter. Oh, Peter, a man who is filled with joy and magic. He is beautiful. You look at him and you do not experience the anger and outrage he must feel towards US government, US foreign policy, or the injustice and inequality that he protests against in this world. All you feel is wonderment and magic. This contradiction, this beauty, this dedication to something that he profoundly believes in and has dedicated his life to ...

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This is the Bread and Puppet philosophy:

We give you a piece of bread with the puppet show because our bread and theater belong together. For a long time the theater arts have been separated from the stomach. Theater was entertainment. Entertainment was meant for the skin. Bread was meant for the stomach. The old rite of baking, eating and offering bread were forgotten. The bread decay and became mush. We would like you to take your shoes off when you come to our puppet show or we would like to bless you with the fiddle bow. The bread shall remind you of the sacrament of eating.

We want you to understand that theater is not yet an established form, not the place of commerce you think it is, where you pay to get something. Theater is different. It is more like bread, more like a necessity. Theater is a form of religion. It preaches sermons and builds a self-sufficient ritual. Puppet theater is the theater of all means. Puppet and masks should be played in the street. They are louder than the traffic. They don't teach problems, but they scream and dance and display life in its clearest terms. Puppet theater is of action rather than of dialogue. The action is reduced to the simplest dance like complicated body of many heads, hand, rods and fabric.

We have two types of puppet shows: good ones and bad ones, but all of them are for good and against evil.

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Peter is about to take leave of us so we may wonder through the museum at our leisure. He says good bye to Lily, Whitney and Jacqueline. I am on my knees rummaging through my backpack for another battery for my camera, I stuck my hand out to shake his, Peter take my hand and give me a kiss on the cheek. I am flattered. I was the only one he kissed. As I think back on that moment I realize it was out of a fairytale. I was on one knee, paying respect to a magical man, and this man with a magical tappy soul who I have been in love with since last week, graced me with a kiss and maybe (I hope) left me with bit of magic.

A Quick Bit of Staistics

Sept 10, 2009
Johnson, VT

I am slightly obsessive about certain things and I have quietly hid these little obsessions over the years. I have decided to embrace them as I approach the end of my 30 years.

30 gigs of data / digital images were created on this last trip
63 rolls of film shot which equals 1032 frames of images. 451 frames made it through the first edit and have been scanned. 43.7% of film shot made it through the initial edit to move on to the second round. Not a bad shooting average at all.

Chichicastenago Surprise

Sept 9, 2009
Johnson, Vermont

As some of you know, the market at Chichicastenago in Guatemala was slightly underwhelming for me. Yet sometimes the places that you didn't think much of can surprise you with an amazing shot that make the early morning worth while and rewrite your impression of that day, that market, that moment forever. This is part of the magic of photography. This is part of the wonder of film.

One of my favorite thing about shooting film is that you don't get to see it right away. You have wait. By the time you get your proof sheets back, its been days and days and days since you shot that roll, since you been to that place. It is familiar to look at each shot as you remember most of them and also a surprise too cause there are ones that are long forgotten.

I would say that I had the best market experience in Central America at San Juan Chamula. But I am not sure that I have a GREAT shot from that day. Chichicastenago might have been slightly disappointing as far as the market was concerned, but look what I brought home with me, look at this moment that I caught on film.

A Delicate Balance

Sept 9, 2009
Johnson, Vermont

It is day 10 here at the artist residency and I am still having trouble finding that perfect balance. I have so much work that I need to get through before I am back on the road again. Editing, scanning, cleaning and dealing with the images from the last trip is a month's worth of work and I am trying to get it completed in 2 weeks. I want to do a little bit more research on the next project and maybe get that started. I would like to get some writing done. There are lots and lots of ideas kicking around up there, the hamsters have been working over time and there is an avalanche that needs to come out. In short, there is a lot of work to do.

Yet, I am in Johnson Vermont, a small town, surrounded by some wonderful artists, writers, beautiful beautiful people who have a uniquely different perspective on life, art and what not. I would like to get to know them. I would like to know their stories and what they dream about. I am being offered a community of like minded people and I want to take advantage of that.

Its a struggle every day between locking myself away in the studio and work until I can't keep my eyes open anymore or go out and socialize with the other artists. A delicate balance of work and play that I seem to have trouble finding. I know I am not the only one. This very same conversation of balance comes up during meals (I know that its ridiculous that I think it takes too much time out of my day to share 3 meals a day with the other artists) and I am comforted to know that I am not the only workaholic present.

Is it weird to feel that life was a lot easier on the road? I shoot in the morning when its not a day spent in transit. I walk around the rest of the day and photograph whatever else that captures my imagination. The hours in between the nitty gritty of survival (food, laundry and lodging) is for me to read, to wonder, to sight see, to day dream, to write, to hunt down coffee and Oreos. The residency is supposed to take away all the distractions of daily life yet I find myself even more perplexed and stressed than I would be otherwise.

Life is a constant push and pull of opposites and you just hope that you can make it to the end without being torn apart by the force fields.

*Photograph courtsey of Frank Jackson, a dear dear friend and a fantastic photographer.

Language and Adaptability

Sept 9, 2009
Johnson, Vermont

Language is fluid. It is adoptable, it is ever changing. When I think of language I think of this footage of an octopus escaping a box that has an one inch opening. The octopus sticks its limbs out of the hole one by one, you think of course it can do that, but then you wonder about its head which is much larger than the opening, just when you start to lose faith in its ability to make it out of the box, it some how squeezes its head through as well.

We meet people, as we spend time with them, we began to take on their accents, we began to incorporate words from their vocabulary into ours.

This one artist told me her roommate would say "Church!" instead of "Christ!" and after a while, she started to as well. When I am with my British friends, "college" becomes "uni" and "brilliant" has become a permanent part of my vocabulary. When we are in foreign lands we attempt to speak the language the best we can, even if we can only say "hello" and "thank you." The practice of learning / speaking a foreign tongue makes sense in foreign lands but why are we naturally inclined to adopted new vocabulary when we are all speaking the Queen's Language? Do we feel that if we used their vocabulary then the other person would understand us that much better? Is it the same impulse as "Hey, look at me, I speak your language. Listen! You must understand me if we are using the same words."

What is even more fascinating is that we become amalgam of language and words that is unique to us and us alone as we travel through life and pick up words and phrases like a magpie.

I decided that I will no longer use the phrase "Good Morning" instead I will say "Buenos Dias" instead. When I say "Buenos Dias" a smile follows, but the phrase "Good Morning" does not inspire a smile.

What are some shinny words and phrases you have picked up along the way?

Chicken with a GIANT Egg

Sept 3, 2009
Johnson, VT

I have been scanning film from this last trip since Monday. I came across this image today, I had forgotten about it. There is a GIANT egg in the cage with the chickens. I wonder which chicken had laid that egg, or has any of them tried to sit on it?

A Snap Shot of My Reality

Sept 3, 2009
Johnson, VT

Never have I thought that I would find the following items congregate on my desk ... bu they have found their way here and this will be my reality for the next 21 days.

A botttle of Jose Cuervo Tradicional
A bottle of Kahula
A Pad Lock
Scissors
Canon G9
A Bananna
A Bottle of Water
Kleenex
American Spirit Light
A Lighter
Post-Its
Film
Yellow legal pad
Pens and Sharpies
Tweezers
Promo Cards for "Wok the Dog"
iPod
Travel Speakers
Moleskins notebook
Wallet
Watch
Eye Drops
Gloves
Compress Air
MacBook Pro
LaCie 500g Hard drives
Masking Tape
A glass with a sip of Tequila left from last night

Have I somehow figure out the secret hand shake, pass the rite of initiation, and finally entered into the full fledged ranks of "masters"?

The Name Game

Sept 2, 2009
Johnson, VT

I have completed the first round of edit of on the new images from Latin America and now I am scanning/cataloging them. It is a boring task, a tedious task, but it needs to be done. When the images gets scanned, you have name it as you file it away on your hard drive. Each image are filed under country, month/year and the city the image was shot in. Then each individual image gets roughly named, along with the twin check number and frame number on the roll. So a sample name for an image would be "meat_7991_12."

I don't get very creative with these preliminary names, once the images have made it through another round of edit is when I start to think about what to title each image, but even then, I still struggle. After naming numerous files "meatlady" over the course of the day, of the years, of the life of "Wok the Dog," I am starting to wonder how many files do I have that are called "meatlady" and if you could have too many "meatlady"? When I hit that creative block on what to name each file, I began to think that maybe there might be something to calling your art "Untitled" after all.

What you title your art work tends to be some what important and can be very helpful in the reception and success of your work. For example, do you think Damien Hirst's tiger shark would be as successful if it was not titled "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" but simply called "Dead Shark" instead?

Logic vs Gut Instinct in hand to hand combat in an all White Room

Aug 31, 209
Johnson, Vermont
Elevation 157m

I am sitting in my all white studio space with a window looking out into the parking lot with a perfect view of the construction workers using the porter potty. I know that photography is on the low end of the totem pole in the art world, but did that need to be made so obvious with a view of the shit house? (I am certain that my studio assignment does not reflect anything other than what is practical and convenient).

I am editing through 63 rolls of film from Mexico and Central America. I shot markets in 13 different cities and 4 countries. I can usually look at the proof sheet and tell you which town that market is as no two markets are a like. I am looking at 3 proof sheets of meat isles and meat stalls and I cannot tell you which country it was in, much less what town. I remember being at that particular market, I remember shooting the images, I remember each of the isles, but I cannot remember anything else. By the process of elimination, logic tells me that this mystery market is not in El Salvador or Nicaragua, but my gut instinct tells me that I shot these images late in the trip which means that it is El Salvador or Nicaragua. OMG! I feel like I am going crazy. My gut is certain, but logic dictates otherwise.

Maybe its not good for me to be in an all white room. Maybe I should staples some pads to the walls....

Johnson Vermont and Artist Camp

Aug 31, 2009
Johnson, Vermont
Elevation 157m

I arrived this morning after a red eye flight to Burlington Vermont. I am here because I have been awarded a fellowship for a 4 week artist residency program. We are picked up by a shuttle service and we drive an hour out side of Burlington to a small town called Johnson.

It is beautiful here. Blue sky, puffy white clouds, green hills, trees everywhere and hillside dotted with cute wooden houses. It is so quaint and picture perfect that you think you are on a movie set. The kind of Americana that exists here is pretty, yet something in its quaintness that solicit some kind of violent reaction in me. I don't want to say that this reality here is not "real," but yet, there is a part of it that is not real. I don't know how to explain it. I am hoping that its one of those you get it or you don't kind of thing.

The Vermont Studio Center has about 30 buildings in the town of Johnson, and when I say town, I mean a street where you can see one end of it while standing at the opposite end. We get our room assignments, our studios, a tour of the Center and the town. During the tour, we are told that there is no liquor here in town, beer and wine only. For liquor, you would have to visit another town where there is a state licensed liquor store. I then imagined Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski (if they would ever attend a residency program) walking out at the mention of the inaccessibility of liquor, tossing their cigarettes behind saying, "What kind of artist do you think we are?!"

Clearly I will not be creating any new images for "Wok the Dog" while I am here in rural Vermont, but I have 63 rolls to edit and scan and a few other projects that I am trying to flush out. There is plenty to keep me busy. I think the idea of the residency isn't so much about what you CREATE as much as it is that you have this time, this space, slotted and set aside for you to work on your art, whatever that may be. But naturally the Asian overachiever in me is all about WHAT CAN I MAKE and HOW MUCH CAN I GET DONE? I swear, between being a type A and implented with the overachiever gene, I will either rule the world one day or end up in a straight jacket muttering, "must do more!"

At the welcome dinner, Jon, the founder, talks about the idea of VSC and the opportunity and sacrifice that we made to be here. One thing that he talks about that really touched me is the idea of the community. Not only are we afforded the time and space to work without having to worry about meals, we have been granted this community of national and international artists of various age, experience, career development and discipline to be a part of. A community that understand the isolation that is required as we work and practice but also a chance to not be in our heads and our minds only and be inspired and perhaps even take a part in someone else's work. I really like the idea. Now, I just have to find that balance between keeping my head down and get as much done as I can verus just hanging out with my friends. The overachiever thinks we can do it all, even if it means we sleep less and work late.