Monday, May 31, 2010
Private(s).2.0
Dust to Dust
Monday, May 10, 2010
I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
My thoughts shift to Poland. My only connection to the country is my Grandmother. She was the youngest of many children and the only one that was not born in Poland. She passed away when I was 13 and she is the only person that I have been close to that has died. I asked her about her family several times but she always refused to talk about it. I know she could speak Polish but I never heard her utter a word of it. She was a pensive and mysterious woman. As the years go by and my memories of her begin to fade there are a few things that always remind me of her. She would often sing an old song to her grandchildren called “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” It was written in 1918 and its sad song about watching bubbles floating away. It seems like a fitting song for a devout Catholic woman who, though full of love for her family seemed (at least through the eyes of a child) to possess an inner sadness that was locked tightly and neatly away. The chorus to the song is:
I’m forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
They climb so high,
Nearly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams,
They fade and die.
Fortunes always hiding,
I’ve looked everywhere.
I’m forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
The song has been recorded many times but I am fond of the version by Vera Lynn, which is 3 minutes and 29 seconds in length. For my performance tonight I will wash my mouth out with soap and then attempt to silently blow bubbles for 3 minutes and 29 seconds as timed by my wrist watch.
I would like to dedicate my first performance in Poland, on what would be Mother’s Day in the United States, to the loving memory of my grandmother Helen Marie. Your grandchildren still whistle the song...
Friday, May 7, 2010
Private(s).2.0
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
No Man's Land, before performance
No Man's Land
Performance Tonight, May 5th, 2010 from 19:00-Until it's done. Gent, Belgium.
In an attempt to create a truly public/private moment, San Francisco artist Lucas Murgida will be performing an action on Wednesday May 5th in a forgotten piece of land in between the old part of Gent and Dampoort. This No Man’s Land is situated on the east side of the Archterdok waterway between Dok-Zuid and the river, just north of the Dampoort Bridge. Murgida will be burying a small coffin that traveled with him from the United States. The action will begin at 7 PM and will continue until the coffin is neatly buried and in the ground without evidence of the event.
Lucas Murgida’s work is generally regarded as generous, challenging, difficult to look at and at the same time impossible to ignore. For more information about him please go to his website: www.lucasmurgida.com. To learn about his adventures in Gent visit his blog: http://lucasmurgida.blogspot.com/. And, to see a video highlighting another action he completed related to this event watch this video: http://www.vimeo.com/10253056.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Willem De Beersteeg Park at Night
Viking Funeral and A Smoking Red Box
I said goodbye to my friend the red box tonight. I tried to give it the powerful Viking burial but it instead turned into a rather impotent flush down the toilet...sigh. It started off really well, however, gust of wind quickly blew out the flames that illuminated the inside of the box. I got a couple of good shots, but in the end my little camera wasn’t strong enough. The box quickly traveled down the Ketelvaart Cannel but then met a strong current from the opposite direction that then stalled it in the middle of the river. As it initially sped away from me I chased it down the river running down the walkways and up to the bridges trying to capture some images. Eventually I realized that people were watching from bridges and from windows. On the last bridge someone came up and asked if the box was mine and I said yes. He simply said, “It looks nice.” After that I just sat and watched it for a while. It looked quite nice to the human eye. Smoke wafting from a slightly illumined red box floating down the river. I let it go after that. If it still there in morning I’ll try to fish it out of the river.