Click on one of the images below to view a full-size version of that piece. Before you do, try clicking on the words “Artist’s Statement” in the caption. That will launch a new window, so you can listen to the MP3 recording of the artist’s statement while you are looking at the image. (Sorry it’s a little klunky!)
If you’d like to support the project and show off the art, you can purchase items with many of these images from the CafePress CHOOSE ART store.
All the beautiful flutterbies take
Margaret’s breath away, crossing her wake!
In Sapelo Sound,
Dozens fly all around,
Do they know they’re our sailboat’s namesake?
~~~
When I woke up, the boat was pitch-black,
And I thought we were under attack,
You have gotten my goose!
Now I’m calling a truce…
Go away and be quiet, Aflac.
Marine Propulsion, the boatyard where we are moored near Charleston, South Carolina, is home to a personable but extremely loud grey goose named Aflac. He came by to wake us up at first light yesterday morning. First, he floated next to the boat and kind of chuckled. When that didn’t get attention, he pulled out the big guns. My goodness, that bird is LOUD!
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The Flutterby yes it will splash
After a copious infusion of cash
The Meps and the Barry
Will sail her (hail Mary!)
As she takes on a seaworthy dash.
This one is a guest limerick from Blender Boy Nick. As a fellow sailor, he knows just what it takes to get a boat off jackstands and into the water! Thanks, Nick, for your understanding of the situation.
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Eleven months ago, I grabbed a tiger by the tail, and when it took off, I didn’t let go. As is often the case with tigers that one is holding by their rear-most appurtenance, I didn’t recognize it at the time.
It started so innocently. Barry and I were sitting in Philip and Linda’s backyard, in Santa Clara, California. “Take a look at these,” said Philip, whose Burning Man playa name is “MacGyver.” He held up a couple of mysterious little metal boxes. Then he wired them to a power supply (using duct tape, chewing gum, and his Swiss Army knife) and turned them on. The backyard was flooded with intensely bright, colored light.
“They’re LEDs,” said Philip. “I’d like to do something with them at Burning Man,” he said. He went on to say that he envisioned people dancing in front of the lights, casting long shadows across the desert.
I took the bait and jumped out of my chair to dance around the backyard in front of the lights, making shadow-puppets. I could see what he meant. Wouldn’t it be fun to play with these bright lights at Burning Man?
Barry and Philip starting talking about how to feed a sound signal through the lights, so they would change color and intensity in time to music. Linda suggested that the music should be something more varied than Burning Man’s ubiquitous dubstep. I said people should be able to select the music, but the selection process should be engaging and mysterious.
The brainstorming continued across the country for the next couple of months, and in January, Philip and I submitted an art grant. We didn’t get an honorarium, but by then, we had put so much work into it, we were committed. We scaled the costs back as much as possible and decided to go for it.
In my concept drawing, four speakers face into the center of a cirle, with the bright lights mounted on scaffolding in the middle. To one side is a free-standing art gallery displaying 16 pieces of backlit art, each with a single unlabeled button. Pressing a button would play the music and activate the lights, but the only indication of what kind of music to expect would be the artwork itself.
It looks so simple. Behind the scenes, though, is a massive year-long effort.
Mating Shadows, as it came to be known, started with 4 friends in the backyard and grew to involve about 15 people, including engineers, fabricators, and artists from as far as Australia. Barry and I stored our boat on the east coast, flew to San Francisco, and worked on it off and on all summer. Philip retired from his job and dedicated his time to it. By then, Linda had shifted her work schedule to part-time, so she had mornings off.
The Mating Shadows team created and integrated custom electronics and software, an amplifier, backlighting, safety lighting, underground cables, signage, and batteries. Some efforts were multiplied by 16, such as installing 16 switches with 16 circuit boards. We recorded 16 sound files for daytime operation and selected 16 playlists for nighttime operation. Eight artists created the 16 pieces of art, taking inspiration from their choice of 30 songs.
To call it an eclectic team would be an understatement. Some were old friends or relatives, like Linda’s cousin, Claire. Others, intrigued by my posts on Burning Man discussion boards, contacted me by email. Scary volunteered to transport our baby to the playa, carefully packed in the back of his mutant vehicle, the Cuddle Shuttle. Managing the efforts of such creative, energetic, brilliant people was a lot like having a tiger by the tail.
If you think this is aggrandizement, let me introduce you to some of our quirky construction crew:
Primary Conceptualizer & Lord of Small, Fussy Parts: MacGyver (aka Philip Wilson)
When I met MacGyver 3 years ago at Burning Man, I simply noted that that he gave great hugs. I later learned that this giant guy with huge hands and size 16 feet has incredible focus and dexterity. He can painstakingly, lovingly solder miniscule, elaborate electronics in the middle of a full-blown dust storm.
Illuminator & Magical Maker of Things: Big Barry Stellrecht
If you’ve read this blog before, you know that my husband can create or fix just about anything on a boat. The great thing about his involvement with Mating Shadows was that it did not have to float, so he worked twice as fast, with half as much stress. The only stressful thing was the lack of good tools; he was forced to do unspeakable things with a circular saw. Philip just shook his head, saying, “Barry is amazing.” To which I replied, “This is nothing. You should see what he can do with a table saw.” When Philip later found out he’d had access to a table saw all along at his Mom’s house, Barry almost cried.
Reticent Enabler & Secret One-in-Charge: Lucky Linda Knepper
The miracles Linda accomplished with her mornings never ceased to amaze me. Parts and materials appeared right when we needed them, wood surfaces got primed and painted, and a critical piece of wood that the amazing Barry miscut was replaced by a correctly-sized one.
Superhugger & Mastermind of Bits & Bytes: Jason Hollister
Jason, an old friend of Philip and Linda’s, showed up one day to write the software. I provided him with a carefully-written description of the user interface, but he made it clear that he needed more of something before he could begin. I finally realized it was chips and salsa, not documentation, that his programming required.
Virtuoso Craftsman Extraordinaire: Archimedes (aka Blaine Gilruth)
We met Blaine and his wife, Suzy, at the boatyard in North Carolina. They started outfitting a boat at the same time we did, but they finished, took it out cruising, sold it, and moved back to the west coast before we even made it out of the boatyard. When Blaine volunteered to help with construction, I was super-excited. Now I would see first-hand how he gets 12 hours worth of quality work done in 37 minutes.
These two members of the setup crew are extra-special, because they are also two of the artists:
Renaissance Woman: Halcyon (aka Suzy Gilruth)
We had a serendipitous moment at Burning Man last year, after placing my brother Stevie’s ashes in the temple. I walked out of the building and right into Suzy and Blaine, probably the only people at Burning Man who had met my brother. Suzy showed me the beautiful piece of artwork she had made on the temple wall, which is how I knew I wanted her art in our gallery. She was probably the most multi-talented member of our team, creating four completely different art pieces and performing four audio recordings to go with them. On-playa, she provided the t-post driver (“It’s mine, not Blaine’s,” she told me), drove fenceposts and rebar, dug and covered trenches, ran wires, and did it all while looking cool as a cucumber in a ruffled green mini-skirt and a pink Choose ART top with spaghetti straps.
The Man Who Can Do Anything, But Doesn’t Know It: Roger Cunningham (aka Rumi-Nator)
We chanced upon Roger one Christmas Eve in Vero Beach, Florida, where we rafted up with his boat in the mooring field. I’m sure he had the only dreadlocks in town. He was taking his boat to Key West, and although we haven’t rafted since, we’ve ridden buses together in Miami and shared margaritas at a Hooters in Jacksonville. Roger provided two photographs and audio recordings for the installation — somehow managing to include the phrase, “a quivering, slobbering mess of capitulation.” He showed up on our doorstep in Santa Clara in August, told us he was lousy at soldering, the proceded to make a liar out of himself by soldering together the entire backlighting system. At Burning Man, he cheerfully volunteered for both setup and takedown, looking just as good as Suzy, but not as modest.
Artsy-Fartsy Conceptualizer & Design Dominatrix: Me
Reading back over what I’ve written about my friends, it is aggrandizement! Since I’m too humble to say such things about myself, I’ll just admit that I worked with power tools, did not cut off any appendages, packed the artwork, arranged transport, did setup and takedown at Burning Man, and performed a tiny bit of behind-the-scenes project management. The next time I write, I’ll tell you more about the artists, my first experience having “placed art” at Burning Man, and why the Mating Shadows sign said “CHOOSE ART.”
In Seattle, they rust, they don’t tan,
So we hatched up a really cool plan:
We’d fly north, bringing sun
To the folks who have none,
Then drive south, with the rain in our van!
We literally brought the sun to poor, soggy Seattle on July 5. We do not plan to take it with us when we leave at the end of the month, but who knows?
Last year, for the first time, I submitted a little item to the “What Where When,” the printed guide to activities at Burning Man:
Graduates of the School of Life/BRC Campus: Your diploma will not be mailed and must be picked up in person. Clothing and student ID optional. Please note that your attitude may determine what field of study is listed on your diploma. Brought to you by the Happy Spot.
Then I sat down at my computer and designed a tongue-in-cheek diploma. At the top, below the name of the school in elaborate Blackletter (School of Life, Black Rocky City Campus)Â was fancy script that read, “In recognition of Ass-Kicking Attainments Achieved on the Playa and by virtue of the Authority granted by the Citizenry of the State of Insanity…” It featured a book-of-fire border with tiny images of the Man, an official seal that read “Incendo ergo sum” (I burn, therefore I am), and the signatures of four “trustees,” one of whom was Sawyer B. Hind, Janitorial Staff Representative. I printed it on parchment, and from a distance, it looks like a real diploma.
My plan was simple. I would set up a table in the middle of the desert, and if anyone came by, I would hand-letter their name and field of study on a diploma. I thought I’d hand out a few to passers-by and give the rest to my friends.
With the help of Barry and my friend Sparkle, I set up the table and started lettering, chatting with the first people who stopped by. People just kept coming, and a line formed. I was focusing intently on each person and the lettering, because I didn’t want to make a mistake and throw away any of the diploma blanks. All of a sudden, I looked up, and to my surprise, there was a line of people, waiting in the hot sun, that stretched all the way to the Man!
I had completely underestimated the importance of the diploma in our culture.
Needless to say, I ran out of diplomas. Not only that, but after three hours of non-stop calligraphy (the event was scheduled to be two hours), my neck and shoulders were cramping. Three fingers on my left hand had gone numb and stayed that way for a couple of days. We had to take down names and email addresses of all the people who were in line when the diplomas ran out.
I have published below my list of the graduates and their fields of study, a priceless tribute to the creativity of the Burning community. Each one is incredibly meaningful to the recipient. “This is so beautiful — I want to hang it up at work,” said one woman, who had initially written her Playa name and then crossed it out and wrote her full name. I lost count of the number of people who told me they were going to frame theirs.
While I was lettering diplomas, my photographer friend Zeke set up a studio and took portraits of the “graduates.” When I saw pictures of happy, proud diploma-holders wearing a velvet-trimmed Doctoral graduation gown, I felt both happy and sad. I’d saved it from the estate of my recently-departed brother, Stevie. I know he would have loved the whole project and Zeke’s pictures.
What had inspired the whole project was the theme for Burning Man 2011: Rites of Passage. When I heard about it, graduation was the first thing that came to mind. I thought it was something that everyone did, that everyone could identify with. I was stunned when many of my “graduates” admitted that they didn’t have a diploma, and they felt incomplete because of it. I was giving them something they really needed.
One man became very emotional, almost tearful, when I handed him his diploma. “It was such a long line, and after I waited for a while, I thought about just walking away,” he told me. “But that’s what I always do.” He admitted that pattern in his life had prevented him from completing many things, including school.
“If I can’t stand in sun long enough to get to the head of this line, I can’t finish anything,” he said. He carefully rolled up his new diploma, proof that he could change his attitude and maybe his life.
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Sparkle’s photographs are below. She’s been a fantastic people-photographer since high school, when she edited the yearbook for three years in a row. Be sure to click on the thumbnails to see the entire image.
The list of 2011 graduates with their amazing fields of study is at the bottom, below Sparkle’s photos.
This year, in keeping with the Fertility 2.0 theme, I plan to hand out birth certificates. Maybe I can even find some additional calligraphers, so my fingers won’t go numb.
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I know that it’s still only May,
But a tropical storm’s on her way.
For the engine to fail
On the eve of a gale
Would indicate, this ain’t my day.
A mysterious text message showed up on my cellphone yesterday:
There once was a gal named Meps
Who passed the awesomeness test
She has a birthday
And all I can say
May it be one of the best!
I have a “dumbphone” with no keyboard, but I laboriously typed this response:
Hey, your limerick-writing is slick,
And you thought you would play a fun trick.
An anonymous rhyme,
To my cell phone, this time:
But I figured it out: It was NICK!
He won’t be able to fool me again. I saved his number in my list of contacts under “Limerick Nick.”
The rounded bricks that made up the ancient street were so treacherous that I had to pick my way extra carefully, with my head down. I didn’t even see the building until it was right in front of me.
Suddenly, there it was — sky-blue stucco, navy-blue shutters, and black decorative ironwork over the doors and windows. It was so familiar, a building I’d seen hundreds of times, but only in photographs and videos.
When I craned my neck to take in all five stories, I got goosebumps.
Almost ten years ago, Barry and I loaned the money to buy this property to a tiny non-profit. At the time, it was a derelict, and we didn’t know what it would take to renovate it. We had no idea when, or if, we would be paid back. We had no idea when we’d even see the building, located in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.
Now we had come to do something more than just see it. We had come to use the building for its intended purpose: To exchange knowledge and build community.
We were part of a group who had come from all over the USA at the invitation of Rita Conceição to help launch a new endeavor: Sou Digna. The phrase is translated as, “I Am Worthy,” which pretty much sums it up. Sou Digna’s programs give impoverished women the confidence and skills they need to achieve equality.
So, when we stepped through the door and into the building, we did so as participants, not visitors. For two weeks, we threw ourselves into a whirlwind of activity that included fixing broken furniture, painting, cleaning, and making the classrooms fresh and inviting. We sat together, creating budgets and planning documents and promotional materials. We participated in discussions every day about living with the violence created by endemic poverty.
For one week, my friend and colleague Nancy Bacon taught a class in organizational development and grantwriting, and I served as a class assistant, documenting the class and learning along with the other students. Then it was my turn to teach them how to use technology to build their international community.
At that point, I really wished I was on the painting and refurbishing crew. As I wrote to a friend at home, “Frankly, I am terrified, even though I know all my students.” As a corporate trainer, I had presented to much larger groups — 200 people, not 10. But I never had to present this much critical material, working with an interpreter. Would I have too much material? Would I have too little? Would I be able to meet their expectations?
In the end, the class went great. The students were excited to realize that they could develop their own messages, using tools that are not intimidating. They did class projects that provided them with useful materials they’ll be able to use, not just abstract assignments. They had several days of hands-on work with computers, and it was fascinating to see the range of computer skills in the room and the joy they experienced when they succeeded in doing something new.
At the end, the biggest complaint in the class evaluations is that they wanted a longer class. Whew!
It has been a few months since the class, and now that I see the work my students are doing, I am awed. They came to class and learned a lot more than new computer skills. They learned that they have things to share with the world that the world wants to hear. They learned that they have a right to speak and be heard by the world. They learned that they are worthy.
In the months since I’ve returned from Brazil, members from this dedicated group of women have launched several initiatives. One is a course in cooking and food preparation that will help women find jobs and start small businesses. Another is a technology class that incorporates basic computer skills with some of the material I shared. And every student in the Sou Digna program learns about human and legal rights, those basic rights that each of us needs to understand to know that yes, I Am Worthy.
Every time I see a photo of the activities, I recognize where it was taken, in that building. I am proud of myself for being part of the genesis of that building, for having a little plaque on the wall with my name on it. But in the end, it’s just a structure. The real pride is in the students who study and learn and grow in that building. The real pride is knowing that I have contributed to the well-being and happiness of my Sou Digna community. There are no plaques for that, but I don’t need one. I carry it around with me all the time.
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For more information about Sou Digna, visit our website or “like” our Facebook page. As a friend of mine, you are already part of our community, but please consider making it official by signing up for updates! If you’d like to help us financially, mark your calendar for May 2nd, 2012, when the Give Big campaign gives you a chance to donate with up to 15% matching. It’s like finding free money to give away.
Nancy Bacon has also written an excellent blog post about our students.
