Bulbancha is a Choctaw word combining “someone who speaks a foreign language” and “be there” in reference to the land that became New Orleans, making it “a place of foreign languages.”

In its second issue (the Language Issue), the zine Bulbancha is Still a Place is full of stories of activating and preserving native cultures through words. My little surface marble from Cocodrie is very honored to be included. Copies at @anchorandarrowdrygoods in the French Quarter or contact info@bulbanchaisstillaplace.org to purchase directly. Edited by Dr. Jeffery U. Darensbourg and Ozone 504.

Rebecca Allen is a professional mover who spent 15 years dancing in Nashville with contemporary dance company New Dialect before moving back home to New Orleans.  She's currently earning her MFA in the Tulane dance department; however, her clay practice earned her a simultaneous studio in the ceramics department for parallel movement and material research.

We met performing in an improvisation-based dance piece developed by Ann Glaviano last year and connected on an interest in the conversation between movement and material.  Her remarkable presence, freedom and subtlety as an improvisor are also fascinating to watch.

Recently, we met for our second-ever jam of movement and materials in her clay studio.  We set a timer and explored the space with our preferred tools, me more focused on mark-making while moving and Rebecca on sculptural/movement questions. 

A dynamic evolved of her creating constraints for me as I tried to draw - taping me to the floor or wall, cutting planes across the space, tearing a surface I was drawing on.  As a result, my lines were re-framed constantly as I created them.  The game forced me to experiment with different distances from my substrate, different body positions and uses of grips and gravity, and even stirred some antagonistic play to inhibit Rebecca's movement in return.  

It generated a variety of line and broke some habits that needed breaking.  Until next jam.

My next project is involves a doodle made during a particularly brutal real estate development class and translating it into a large-scale wall installation.  I think I like the idea of taking up space with art instead of unimaginitive concrete developments, and this piece is a beginning experiment in how to use a machine to be a little kinder to my body in the process of building an installation.  My sweet pal Erin had to PT me out of some nasty back pain after the last one, so let's see if we can't whittle this process down to only the labor essential to the piece.  

Update: Some experimental compositions with cuts

Artists/makers playing with the objects from "Secret Beach" - the dance performance developed with Ann Glaviano of Known Mass dance company - to generate feedback for future objects.  Topics of conversation included the use of found materials and objects, the range of treatment between the objects, feelings of play without direction, and the importance or lack thereof of the permanence of the objects.  

Dancemaker Ann Glaviano (with whom I've collaborated in the past via her dancing for my work and me dancing in her Known Mass: St Maurice piece) agreed to develop a score called "Secret Beach" for the opening of my installation "A Tussle with the Genius Loci."

Glaviano is collaborating with dancers Rebecca Allen and Deuwan Frances using the tools of experimental choreographer Deborah Hay as a foundation for a score that interacts with the installation. 

Hay's framework generates improvisational choreography based on what each dancer sees.  In a state of constant motion (with prompts like "here and gone" and "I am not fixed"), dancers pass from frame to frame of visual information and respond to each with the physical vocabulary unique to each dancer's body and history.  Glaviano responded to the work I'm developing and generated additional prompts for the dancers ("what if I create the space," etc.) including the exciting and vulnerable introduction of dancers' vocals.

The visual artwork the show interacts with was born out of a process of looking around at the water's edge and wondering if I really was home after moving back to Louisiana after 13 years away.  I think in that process I discovered that "home" is not fixed, and that it requires me to look anew at every moment and redefine it.  Collaborating with these dancers and Deborah's tools opens up the here and now in a vivid and specific way, and the opportunity to build this show with three women originally from Louisiana makes for a rich and informed "Tussle with the Genius Loci."

Experimenting with monotype and stop-motion logic, maybe moving to make a short animation from these, maybe using movement from footage of a dancer I filmed last year.  (Made while listening to CS Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet)

This month I am one of 4 artists in residence at the Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY.  They host residents, interns, classes and beautiful studios for paper-based arts and ceramics.  I'll be working in their light-filled printmaking studio.  This residency is an opportunity to unplug from daily responsibilities in order to dig into a project, and it will also give me access to a printing press for the first time since moving back to Louisiana.  

In my time here, I'll be reconciling old and new work.  In my oldest published portfolio, I created monotypes from scenes of Louisiana pageants (mardi gras, debutante balls, etc).  In contrast, my newest portfolios contain colorful silkscreen books and abstract cyanotype images.  My goal in my month at Women's Studio Workshop is to reconcile the concepts and techniques that created both.  

The original work was motivated by a raw frustration and resistance, while the zines were created out of a sense of hope, curiosity and possibility.  I'll be experimenting with combining color and black-and-white, political and joyful, tradition and evolution, 2-D print and 3-D shape.  Wish me luck!  I'll post updates weekly.

Also, I've been known to send drawings to people who write me letters:

Women’s Studio Workshop
P.O. Box 489
Rosendale, NY 12472

In its first 7 issues, Puncture has folded, flipped and cut its way to tiny, touchable interactive experiences.  The series continues on fabric with issue #8, offering the chance to sew it, fold it or use it how you see fit.   The experiment is in your hands now!  Head to the zine store to pick up your very own.

Title from a journal entry by crew member George Wardwell on an expedition to the North Pole and back in 1908. (Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum)