Arts and Pranks
Today I finally met Kip, head of the PF AiR program, who’s been on vacation for the last few weeks. Kip quickly won my heart by showing me the work of one of the artists who was here last year. It was a photograph of a little alien sculpture that the AiR, Shing Yin Khor, had photographed in it’s “natural environment” in the park. Kip had posted the photo to the park’s facebook page with the caption “What is this?” and soon 10,000 people were weighing in. “I didn’t tell nobody for a week,” he said. “Not even the superintendent.”
As I mentioned before, I’m doing less performing this month and more performance prep work than in the Smokies but tonight was the exception. Holbook, AZ, the gateway city to the park- though it be 30 miles off- hosts an art expo once a month for local artists and park AiRs. Holbrook is no less kitschy than Gatlinburg on the main drag. Is this is a prerequisite for gaining National Park status?
At the depot, I set up a few monitors to show video work samples. I’d also brought a few things to demonstrate some of the object theater work that I’m developing this month. Object theater is essentially a form of puppetry. It asks that you find every possible use for/character within an object. It’s great for allowing your imagination to run wild and for seeing all of the beauty and potential in everyday objects. You really have to tap into your child brain for this kind of thing. Our object theater instructor in school told us to choose an object, play with it for an hour, then another hour, then another, in order to push past the feeling of “I’m bored and I don’t know what else to do.” In all of those hours, I never reached that point. I love this stuff.
As fun as it was to perform, the highlight of the night was in talking to a local cowboy about a dance piece that I was showing on the monitor. It was my final project for grad school this year.
“What’s this, some kind of interpretive dance piece?”
“Yes, it’s about the feeling of being lost in your head.”
He watched in silence. Ten minutes later he turned to me and said, “That’s how it feels to be a cowboy.” He brought his wife over to watch the video and he watched it with her for a second time. This dance, this strange piece of theater with clown make up and mime costumes, wrought into being in the city of Philadelphia, touched something in a man all the way across the country in the desert of Arizona. It’s moments like this that artists live for.
Turns out I’m the first performance artist AiR at Petrified Forest and so- just like in the Smokies- no one knew quite what to make of me. I spent most of the night as a theater ambassador visiting the other artist’s booths and talking to the natives about the arts scene here in Holbrook. I even met the first park AiR, who is a painter and muralist. Holbrookians are no strangers to the arts and they have, I learned, a highly accomplished high school show choir. They also have an ambitious plan to revitalize the town. “We’re going to restore it to it’s former glory!” said one of the arts patrons.
This sounds great, really, except that I learned a little bit about Holbrook history today and it’s more like former gory than glory. The train depot, where the expo was held, is on, I kid you not, Bucket of Blood Street:
It was named for a “right lively battle” in the saloon, formerly named The Cottage, across the street. Local lore also speaks of a pharmacist turned sheriff named Frank Wattron who wrote an invitation to a hanging meant to satirize the fact that sheriffs were legally bound to issue invitations to hangings to those who would have to bear witness or participate but there was no stipulated form for the invitation. Wattron printed out fancy wedding style invites assuring those invited that “everything will be done to make the surroundings cheerful…” He sent them out to a few friends as a joke but, as with all good shenanigans, it went viral. Wattron got in a bit of trouble with the Governor so he issued a second invitation, equally satyrical, but deathly somber in tone.
The next night, Arizona pranksterdom hit closer to home. It was the first night of Bio Blitz, an event put together by Andy and the bio team to record all of the animals along a particular stretch of road. We start out at sunset with some people on foot, others on bikes, others in trucks. This way we cover lots of ground, see lots of animals, and Andy can test out which, if any, method of transportation is best for spotting particular, crepuscular wildlife.
Tonight we had the good fortune to encounter the rare “Dinosaurus Humorous” (read: little plastic dinosaurs) that Jared, one of the Law Enforcement Officials, had set out along the route.
Between Wattron’s invites, Kip’s alien photo, and Jared’s blitz prank, I am beginning to feel right at home in Arizona. Perhaps a return to practical joking was what the Expo folks meant by returning the town to it’s former glory. If so, I have a few, um, thoughts on the matter…
