December 27, 2021
The Quarry Project Update
Every week, I stop by the quarry to observe its seasonal changes. The back wall, which is vast at 60 feet tall, captivates me. I love the way the white snow defines the ledges, the edges, and the water alters and reflects those images back. Recently, I stopped by and there was a flock of ducks, a ripple of V’s as they swam away from the rock shore.
Photographer: Julia Barstow
Last month, I spoke about suitcases and their place in my work. This month I want to focus on the HOUSE. Along with Julia's photograph above, here is a short clip taken by Leslie from this summer when we “anchored” the house upstage of our dancing platform.
This house was made for a room in Winooski’s Woolen Mill where I presented my first public site piece, The Mill Project in 1995. My partner Dave Severance constructed this delicate skeleton onto which we pinned a skin of old sheets. It appeared again in an abandoned warehouse in The Bakery Project amongst wheat sheaves and grain, then “flew in” onto the Flynn Theatre’s main stage in Running Like Mad with our Eyes Closed in 1996. Since then, it has been in storage, though not forgotten. The quarry offered a lovely and haunting setting for this house that is only a fragment, a recollection, a house that cannot shelter. In the same way that the snow defines the edges of the quarry history, the bones of the house define the shape of a resonant and memory-filled space.
During the past two years, the ensemble has spent time listening to one another as part of our practice of deepening connection. House/Home was an early prompt. Here is a quote from one:
When she first began to describe the stairs in that home, I realized I was layering on the image of the stairs in my childhood home. Unexpected memories that hadn't been thought of in a long time came up for each of us. One memory would lead another traveling in circuitous ways from one room in the house, to a memory outside and back to that room again.
I close the door to 2021 and open the door to 2022,
