First the interesting part - What can I learn about this play's structure that I could use to create a new work that focuses on another sense, such as touch? I will admit that only upon writing this blog post has this idea floated to the surface, so it is going to take some more exploring. But I think it is a good and important lesson to take from this script.
Second, finding the visual within the text. And it was there, sprinkled throughout, these beautiful visual moments that I could just sense - in scale, in texture - in the lovely colored amorphous blobs that are my imagination (meaning non specific undefined things that I understand, the way you understand dreams, but there are not words or drawings that can express them, they either are or are not). One specific moment begged to be real. I think that perhaps it could be overlooked in a production, or glossed over because of "technical difficulties" which of course means that I had to figure out a way to make it real. You know, that solving the impossible thing.
The words, from Greg Romero (shared with his permission):
WORKER 4
What are you smiling at?
WORKER
3
…
WORKER
4
…
WORKER
3
Nothing.
They stare at each other for a long moment.
WORKER
3
Weeping willow.
WORKER
4
…
WORKER
3
Remember?
Worker 3 unbuttons his shirt, and turns his back to her, revealing a
giant, colorful, weeping willow carved into his back.
She hesitates, then gently traces her finger across the image.
WORKER 4
Who did this?
WORKER
3
You did.
A giant weeping willow scar, carved onto someone's back. My mind raced, how old was this scar? How was it carved? What would the scars look like? Or is it still fresh? How would you create it? At first I was hung up on the technical details, I have to go buy liquid latex, and what release should I use? What make-up kit should I order? Should I wear it myself or get someone else to model it? And then I realized I was going too far. This residency has been about play, about doing, about making stuff just to see. And the clay was already in my house. And that was the first step, latex or not.
My clay is over three years old and I underestimated the amount of elbow grease it was going to take to reanimate it. I am still sore almost a week later. I don't like sculpting. It makes me feel like my hands are made of thumbs and that all my great visions get translated through a preschooler before getting to my hands. Yes I know, practice makes perfect. Yes I also know that I need to remember this humbling bumbling feeling because this is what I am asking my students to do each time I ask them to draw something. Regardless, I pushed myself through, rolled out the clay, built up the spinal cord, smoothed out the surfaces...and then I slashed at it with a steak knife, HARD. That was a moment. Someone did this to another person, deliberately cut open their skin to make these marks. It is easy. It is very very hard. Swallow. Breathe. Ok. Just clay. Not real. What would it feel like with muscles resisting underneath? The bones in the spine? The image was carved and I could release my mind from asking the questions. The "carving" wasn't perfect. I wasn't really going to get a "second chance" on that so I decided to let it go. And then I started playing with the scars. I tried not to get too hung up on details (no excessive visual research online) I just went with my own research, the accidental scars of my youth that I carry and tried to extrapolate onto a larger scale.
The images are below:
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