Home

I am home now. Its time to reflect on my experience and keep making work as I settle into this fascinating bay area landscape and city buzz.

Aimee, Shawn and I

I am in Nevasda now, I will arrive in the Bay Area today. Wow. Transitions take place quickly. This was our very first residency, it couldn't have been a better match. Aimee is on her way to Vermont to another residency, and Shawn back to Seattle. I miss them dearly.

Good Bye Nebraska

Today I leave. I am at a loss for words. The feelings I hold right now are deep, layered, sweet, exciting, and sad. I feel full. Transitions are fascinating. I am ready, and I love moving my energy. The hours on the open road ahead will be a great time to reflect upon this experience as I drive out of Nebraska along the Platte River, into Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and finally California, which is my home. I will miss the picture perfect barns, the prairie, the sunrise,the enormouse sky and starlite nights and all of the Nebraska smells, but I realize, they have found a place in my heart and it's deep, maybe as deep as the hole that I sat in. 3 feet and 3 inches in the earth of Nebraska.

Sitting in the hole

The corn against my body felt cool, slippery, and tight. Any movement I made, the corn would tighten up against my body, filling every available gap. When I looked up at folks while they poured corn onto me, I was very thankful for their involvement. I was curious about how each person decided to pour corn; fast, slow, gently, lots or just a little quickly. Sometimes there was conversation, and sometimes there was just the audio in the background. I was comfortable, most of the time. The hardest moments were, when the weight of the corn around my chest got heavier as it rose closer to my neck, and each breath became more difficult.

There was not always a constant flow of people, I spent time alone too. I felt helpless, because I could not move, but relaxed. I enjoyed listening to all the interviews and sounds that I recorded. The wind blew and leafs would fall into the corn crib coming close to my head. The smell and coolness of the earth was pleasant. I closed my eyes. Other times I would rotate my head in all directions looking at how the sun light burst through the slats of wood.

Corn Crib Performance

I dug hole in the center of the corn crib. I sat down in it. Audio speakers were installed on both sides of the crib with the recorded sound of farmers talking about farming, coyotes, corn cribs, technology, bins and silos. There was also recordings of corn being poured through the elevators out onto piles, the sound of huge combine machines in the fields, cows, poetry about farming the Nebraskan land, as well as a few of my own words about holes and corn. I sat in the hole for 45 minutes two times a day during the opening. While in the hole I would holler out to folks to grab a small bucket of corn on the outside, come in and help fill me up with corn to my neck while listening to the audio. Some folks were hestitant at first but everyone participated and eventually my hole was filled with corn to my neck.