For this choreographic project, me and my colleague, John, decided to try creating in a different art medium than we usually do. We both gravitated towards painting and didn’t second-guess it. So off to the store we went, getting large rolls of paper and different palates of paint. During our initial discussions, we landed on the concept of us processing our journey to graduate school – in a pandemic. We had a good laugh about how we are basically initiating our own art therapy, but we were both very okay with that.
Fast-forward, now we are at the park setting up. And it is windy. Really windy. Every time we lay down the paper, it gets picked up and tries to blow across the field towards the people playing cricket. So, in order to problem solve, we end up throwing everything we have with us that weighs over a pound onto the paper. Now we are not just painting the paper, we are maneuvering around shoes, water bottles, and disinfected wipes as well. Nothing can be simple, or go as planned, can it? Nonetheless, we persevere and have lots of good laughs along the way. If this doesn’t represent part of our journey into graduate school during a pandemic… what does?
We get to painting. It’s great. It’s therapeutic, satisfying, and keeps us present. We work and don’t think about time. We interact with each other. We learn about our own methods in creating – I am very unmethodical, not thinking about what’s coming next until I get there. John is complete opposite. Both paintings have a lot of meaning to us. We finish, wait for it to dry, clean up… the sun is gone and we are both hungry.
The actual painting portion of this project feels so minimal. We had incredibly significant conversations and interactions in the initial conceptual idea-making, in the setting up, in the problem-solving, in the embracing the obstacles and letting them have a name in our project, in the clean up. In the paint that is still on one of my masks that I grabbed afterwards. The project turned out to be the process. The product of the project was our processing parts of the pandemic on paper. The painted paper pointed us to the process of our project. This was quite the painty project of processing the pandemic in the park. Peace.
Please check out my collaborator’s blog post here
Katie O’Loughlin 
Nice story!
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Katie, I just filmed my dance film in Tuttle Park on the tennis courts opposite this field (I think). This is amazing. I love the process. I love that you filmed it from two locations. I think this could definitely be a score for a dance or perhaps a happening or some sort of installation which involves people passing by and adding a painted moment. These have been popping up in my neighborhood, people offering chalk and plans and telling people what to do on their driveway, uplifting messages or obstacle courses as you walk by. These are the moments of life. Present, process, product. All the same. It also reminds me of our first year choreography workshop – we painted like this with our whole cohort *sniff* in the barnett. I think it is still in the hallway. You rock! Keep up the awesomeness!
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