healing the... — Winslow House Project

awakening to feelings of death

here we are, another month down the path - this path, winslow house project. i always struggle to find where exactly to begin this verbal archival practice - so i go back in my iphoto log and look for clues.

last post was october 2 - contemplating radical hospitality. & today, talking with current resident lovage sharrock in the kitchen, i can now hear echoes of what we discussed - transitions of all kinds - listening and managing interior voices of the self - care in the face of hospitality - care in our relationships with each other - responsibilities in community - i.e… who will clean my dish, etc… - how do we show up for one another in the interstitial moments - how do we give time and space to one another - how do we navigate our own maps considering others have their own too - who is writing those maps, etc….

october 3rd 1st photo…

rewriting the map is what it feels like making decisions on this route - if i imagine what whp should be, i feel anxious - so i return to what it is. a conversation at the kitchen table. a cleaning of a toilet. a person walking by out front as i stand at the mailbox. a returning fellow needing a night away from reality. a feral kitten learning to trust a human - inevitably leading to a cat battleground for resources. a figuring out how to play a dvd just purchased that is meant for a particular technology and looking for the adapter required. feeding the chickens. moving the couch back from felix’s salon back into the main space in the barn. observing cobwebs on the radio tower. picking up the pieces of a month long residency and editing what will stay and what will go. meanwhile the house continues to fill with gorgeous detritus. & how all of it can feel both healing and devastating - much like living.

*felix gifts regina some very significant 1980s WHAM! merch*

in short, we are living and dying together. i believe that is what process is all about. a constant transition without a place to stop - all we can do is pause & acknowledge the circumstances. today we are in the midst of the phipps pt. residency - lovage sharrock and jon leidecker. they are working on new songs and preparing for their album release this friday at the first presbyterian church in oakland incahoots with agnes martian. releasing a record is much like birth. working on new songs is much like conception. both with their own micro-deaths woven in. being present for the spectrum is the wise mind. this is how we hold space here - protecting and nurturing process. which is primarily composed of space and time without expectation. except in order to do so we must prioritize common sense - how the work gets done. it does require a type of order. how to make these expectations clear and inviting? this my current occupation.

negin sarrami’s orb created in her bedroom - later submerged in the carquinez strait

the october residency was made up of tarot readings, greek myth, orbs, spectrums, papermaking, salon manifestations, local history, teenage angst, journals, archives, stagecraft, storytelling, bread making & procuring, placemaking & mark-making. the transformation was universal. the open house encapsulated the energy afoot.

regina tsais reimagining a vallejo teenagers desk top for her film KORE.

katherine agard, regina tsasis, mayhew drewry, negin sarrami & felix dina - the only cohort as of yet to have all 5 residents stay a week following the open house - each enjoying a full month on site - time was well used - the space fully occupied.

mayhew drewry made a stage (a house) for his one person play with several characters.

felix made a parlor/salon in the barn - filled with collage and poetry - katherine and felix collaborated on the space creation. katherine made paper and wrote prose - her installations, a multi-pinned map - she occupied the brick well out front, the driveway, the front porch, behind the barn, the back porch and her room. at the end she was certain her paper needed to be larger in format. she might even use the framework from mayhew’s stage to make her next paper screens. her partner bill deconstructed the frames, threw them in his truck and drove them to their home in forrestville - love.

katherine agard honoring the october hunter’s moon in the victorian chicken coop -

in addition - luca and arlo (mo & leaflet) occupied confloptus for the month of october

leaflet & mo in confloptus

leaflet & mo engaged in a month long exquisite corpse - a surrealist parlor game from 1925 or even perhaps earlier in 1918 - which started as a writing exercise and eventually became a drawing or collage exchange - in october, luca and arlo conversed in a four part sculpture - four weeks of occupying the space separately - leaving their work covered to their collaborator’s gaze and then when it was time to move onto the second two squares leaving a red line or a trail of dust for the other to move on with. they finally came together the day before the opening and unveiled the complete corpse - concrete and ephemera balancing each other out - floating.