Sweetened Water FarmPhotograph by Alison Shaw
I took this picture in the late 70’s. It’s one of my best friends from that time “Helen” and her dogs walking back to her barn. There is something evocative and emotional and melancholy about the photo for me, which is strange cause what could be more joyous than taking a walk in the snow with your friend and her dogs? But I think it’s that they’re walking away from me that makes it sad. Regardless, there is still a strong sense of connection and home in the photo. I love taking pictures in the snow it covers up the rutted roads and it edits the landscape so that it looks like a pen and ink sketch and allows only the bones to show through.
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What do you See?
How LongSong by Isaac Taylor
There was a feeling of ‘Lonely Beauty’ that struck me in the photo I interpreted [from stop 1]. I could see that everyone might not interpret it as a lonely scene; just some good companions out for a little exercise, but to me it was about longing and love. I looked at the photo a whole bunch of times on my iPhone and then picked up my shruti box and hit record.
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UntitledDance by Alexandre Lane
The music I interpreted [from stop 2] reminded me of a father telling his son honestly about his life. About a love he’d had and lost and warning his son not to run away from love. The lyrics felt sad and nostalgic but the tone of the singer’s voice and the vibration of the music left me feeling nurtured, comforted, and completely reassured. My dance came from those feelings of comfort and reassurance. I imagined a sailor on the open sea. I felt the nostalgia and sadness he might endure for a love that is far away and awaiting his return. I imagined the vulnerability he must feel under the vastness of the sky and over the whale-like motions of the sea. But within that vast opened exposure I imagined his complete calmness. I looped the music and just went with it. People started gathering around me. They stood on the balconies and on the outskirts of that giant space but I didn’t even notice them because I was completely filled with the music.
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PathwaySculpture by Thomas Sayre
Within minutes of seeing the dance [from stop 3] I had a strange identification with the concrete floor on which the human gyroscope traveled. I imagined the pathways that might be made on a softer floor. I felt an extreme contrast between the meandering path of the human hoola-hoop through the severe rigidity of the industrial site. I could smell the musty concrete with the counterpoint of the sweat of the gyroscope man. The piece I produced is a direct response to thinking about the tracks that the human-propelled hoop device made on the floor it rolled on. My response is an earth casting where I rolled a round device onto prepared North Carolina mud. The piece is sort of like being the floor in the industrial space having received the track of the acrobatic wheel in the video. I then let the mud dry creating the serendipitous forms of cracks as the moisture leaves the mud. The piece is about the artifice of “human-made”, art, versus the organic occurrences of “nature-made”.
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What do you Taste?
