"I Hate the Rain, I Hate the Snow..."

Having seen Ray Johnson create art and spread it through the postal system, it was kind of neat for us to do something similar.

Taking time in class to just let loose and collage together whatever we felt was enjoyable and, to an extent, necessary.  It was quite nice not to worry so much about this creation we are making.  The idea of putting things together and then sending them off on their way is quite interesting, actually.  What if we chose a random name from a phone book?  What if we chose a random name for our return address?  How might our piece that we mail out affect the person that gets it?  All of these questions and more were being tossed about in my mind during this exercise.

I think this was also a great chance to just play - which can be very helpful at times.  It allows one to just see what happens when one medium/element/technique meets another, and hopefully find something useful (or entertaining, at least).  As far as I am concerned, more of this playful exercise needs to happen in my art, in my life.

Hit The Lights!...

The best things in life are free.  

Really, though, I feel like the best things in life are improvised.  

Our performance at the Radius Center was not completely off the cuff, though - we had gone through a few dry runs beforehand.  The true beauty of the show, in my opinion, is when we all come together and play our various parts.  We run around backstage, toss light switches back and forth, bring random props onto and off of our makeshift stage.  When all is said and done, our show had gone well - plenty of people have shown up to watch, and several participate in our shenanigans, too!

Personally, I thrive off of situations like this.  No one can discount the benefits of some prior planning, but the uncertainty of what will happen, the mistakes we make, the happy accidents that help us out, and the thrill of seeing everything come together is what really makes me love performing.  

I must take some time to thank Ken Little, for pushing me to do my first Performance Art piece a while back, and Leslie Raymond for increasing my exposure to and knowledge of Fluxus artists, happenings, and the like.  Because of them, I am now confident in my live performance ability - whether it is in the realm of music, theater, or art, I am ready and willing.