washing the floor, again

Holy shit, shista, cow, dog, curtains! What a day, what a day. I am so beat. and feel pretty raw and on the verge of tears. Sara Wolf was supposed to be with us today leading a workshop in writing about one's work. I opted to try to lead something in lieu of Sara since she threw her back out. But it turned out to be mighty serendipitous not to have the structure of the workshop today. There was so much sharing, digesting, logistical working out to do, and space cleaning and rearranging to manage. We were there till nearly 6 with no time wasted. I am bumbling along with the role as director, facilitator, getter of stuff, logistics negotiator, and ultimately fellow artist, questioning and examining my own practices and products. I have several self-conscious regrets about how I operated in these many roles today, not wanting to impart my priorities, revelations, interests and questions onto the others' practices. Next week I intend to listen even more. Though I did thoroughly listen today as we went around and each artist shared some of what the experience of the week was like.

I am truly impressed by the "inter-disciplinary" nature of this space we are creating. Everyone seems to be moving fluidly between movement, crafting, drawing, photographing, meditating, sleeping, chanting, writing, responding to what they are needing as they face their practice and themselves, alone in the room. I was so deeply moved listening to everyone's experiences from the week, holding back tears many times as I imagined Cheryl chanting and initiating the space, Alison sleeping on the floor, Liz crunched up in the bathroom washing paint from her naked body, Brooke tied to different parts of the room assessing her "value" her strength in relation to walls, beams, and Cesar sitting for 90 minutes staring at a fire in the center of the room. I know now that creating the space for this project is deeply meaningful to me. It is something I want and need to offer others and it is invaluable in helping me understand the nature of experimentation, practice, process, failure (though all these words are feeling trite, overused, and inadequate to describe the honesty, risk, political radicalism, and unglamorous ugliness of the event.

These walls are holding brilliance for hours and hours each day and I could feel it the moment I walked in the room.

Logistically: We are dealing with issues of privacy, time slots, heat, organization of the space, the ability to black out the space and work with light, and definitely with collaboration (more seems needed/wanted, yet the nature of how to make it happen and if we have enough time for it in this short month, is unclear). We've extended some slots, added late night slots, and are generally putting the whole schedule on the table for revision. The artists will work out with one another more or less overlap time between their slots and even potential collaborations. Next week we will need another 3 hours for check in and logistical issues though we may do that somewhere else (Huntington Gardens possibly) before going on a field trip?