Sunday in the Park with Erin Shafkind

View all Sunday in the Park with Erin Shafkind photo’s here.
Erin Shafkind’s website.

old haiku

found in an old sketchbook, page dated 3/29/06:

I found a moon (deep)
inside your eyes and then it
waned, to my surprise.

On the same page I referenced Karen Finneyfrock by pulling the title, Written Under the Influence of Fever Mixed With Sadness from her book Welcome to the Butterfly House. I connected with that title at the time of writing the above haiku.

surreal

I love my job.
Monday: pick up a client from the airport, client had a seizure on the plane but was o.k. (doctors on flight assisted her through then EMT checked vitals once on ground and client has a history of seizures). I transported them home. They described seizures as a thunder and lightning storm in their brain, thunder being the shaking and lightning being the internal electricity.
Tuesday: I visited a 94yr old client at their Adult Family Home. The previous week I helped this individual write a letter to a cousin. When I arrived this week, the client had received a letter back! We wrote another letter… so I am assisting a 94yr old correspond with a 91yr old! Snail mail is a beautiful thing.
Wednesday: 4th annual santa photo with a client then a steak lunch at the request of the client (I had salmon).

fun fact

The camp counselor/teacher in me came out with the Weight of My Love project because I found myself nervously counting the sketchbooks numerous times a day to make sure I hadn’t left any behind!

Wrapping up The Weight of My Love

The last two hours of this performance were spent at the Victory Lounge watching the Possum Hollow Boys. I invited people to look through the sketchbooks. Most were very receptive and looked through more than one.






photo by Matt Rhode.

safety first

The Strength of My Love

I heart solid color backgrounds. Photo: Genevieve Sherrow.

spills

above: today (photo by Genevieve Sherrow)
below: yesterday

self critique with 5 more hours to go….

The weather has been perfect for this project (no rain).
I just told a friend that the guidelines have changed during the piece. The original plan of ‘carrying’ the weight has been adapted to making sure the sketchbooks are always with me when I leave the house and in the same room with me while at home. I explained to the friend that when I brush my teeth the sketchbooks are not on me- but in the bathroom.

I want to do something similar in the future. I feel this piece is too subtle and I need to kick it up a notch. The video of me taking my mail art quenches my thirst because of the bulk of the transport, there’s more meat to it. My example is when I did my cell phone work in 2003, I walked around and had faux conversations on my cellphone, but no one but me and friends I told knew the difference. Much different was Jess Dobkin’s work in a similar vain around the same time!

above image: me on the phone with creative cohort Cat Dogg. Can you see the person you’re on the phone with?

above image ©Jess Dobkin
See how Jess Dobkin nailed it and my work is too subtle, I feel that way with my sketchbooks and want to push further. I have ideas… it will happen. In my defense (for that piece), I hadn’t fully moved into performance yet, at that time I was merely interacting with my conceptual sculptures. Below is the installation that accompanied that work called Cellphone Bonanza:

click on above link to view more images of the installation.