The Our Lady of Sorrows Project

The joys and sorrows of rebuilding in clay

Husband and Wife

I mention this project briefly on my grief page. This was a collaboration with my good friend and performing artist Amy Woodruff. We were roommates at Goddard and hit it off. It turned out that we had similar strands of loss in our work. She does costume design, writing, and performance with projection of images. She does amazing work you should check her out on facebook at “fleetingghosts” “Moon Cove” or through the “Our Lady of Sorrows Project”. She can also be found through the Louisiana Arts Guild. We decided that we could do a workshop at school during one of our residencies and so the idea for the OLS project was born. We knew we wanted to remain as real to our stories as we possibly could and Amy convinced me to do some performance with my poetry. We touched upon Grief, Loss, Depression, Friendship, and Love. We used images from Catholicism, Tarot, Family, and Haitian Vodoo Goddesses. The performance consisted of a dialog between 2 entities both symbolizing different stages of light and dark. We utilized movement as well as stillness to indicate growth or change. Exchanges were sung or recited and reflected willingness to expose one’s self and our honest vulnerability. We were surrounded by clay sculptures, gravestones, rustling leaves, and white candles while the images flashed on a screen behind us. Both characters went through their own metamorphosis and the show ends with a traditional jazz funeral in which participants encourage the audience to dance with them in a celebration of the mystery of life/death. I have this on cd and I will attempt to upload it with a link from this page. This may take me a while because I am not a techie by nature. The show is about 25 minutes long and the footage is shot by Jeffrey Martins at The Harlow Art Gallery in Hallowell, ME. This performance happened on Oct. 16th and 17th, 2009

These images are just a few of the photos we projected as we performed. There are far too many to post. Both Amy and I had old family photos and newly created especially for this show.

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