Hearing the Hearing Trumpet 2012 and 2013

Hearing the Hearing Trumpet / An Annotation Event and Tea Party at Martina Johnston, 2012

At Martina }{ Johnston Gallery while  An Annotated Hearing Trumpet, Preface and Figures  was on view, I invited students and senior artists, art historians, and dance historians to a tea party with a staged reading, or Annotation Event.

With the octogenarian art and performance historian Moira Roth, the “Annotation Event” I created was a slide lecture cum bed time story, using my summary of Carrington’s Hearing Trumpet characters, and excerpts from the book itself, as a script. I played myself: the slightly too literal bibliophile and acolyte of Leonora Carrington; Moira played a hybrid version of real-life 92 year old Carrington, and the characters of Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet, all eccentric crones.  As I read from my descriptions, Moira’s character interjected with recitation from the book’s actual text - the dramatic tension thus locating itself in the charged dynamic between eager interpreter and more obdurate, loud, and even slightly disinterested author. Visually, and in our casting, we also embodied two CIS women separated by a generation, one the student of the other and seeking to learn from her some elusive lesson about cronedom.

Hearing the Hearing Trumpet / An Annotation Event, 2013

As Southern Exposure gallery in San Francisco I expanded the performance I had given during my 2012 exhibition An Annotated Hearing Trumpet, Preface and  Figures at Martina Johnston Gallery. With the octogenarian art and performance historian Moira Roth, the “Annotation Event” I created was a slide lecture cum bed time story, using my summary of Leonora Carrington’s Hearing Trumpet characters as a script, and some of my photographs as illustrations. I played myself: the slightly too literal bibliophile and acolyte of Leonora Carrington; Moira played a hybrid version of real-life 92 year old Carrington, and the characters of Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet, all eccentric crones.  As I read from my descriptions, Moira’s character would interject with recitation from the book’s actual text - the dramatic tension thus locating itself in the charged dynamic between eager interpreter and more obdurate, loud, and even slightly disinterested author. Visually and in our casting, we also embodied two CIS women separated by a generation, one the student of the other and seeking to learn from her some illusive lesson.