Tripods firmly astride, two cameras - no longer in control. Securely attached with lenses still pointing at the two still lives; cauliflower and lemons. With their sturdy black three-legged tripod construction, the cameras still seem to want to claim their subjects.
Cables however, dismantled and now dangling around the cameras as if chocking their sorrow. The shutters of the two will no longer click in synch every four minutes. How soothing the sound has become to me. Almost like beating of a heart.
How helpful it was to have them set up to shoot within two or three seconds of each other. This way, there was more time to enter the still life studio, check on the sculptures, take an additional shot with my camera, water the plants, observe new developments, notice how much more of that environment, the living creatures made the home-like comfortable to them.
In a few minutes - no more....
A single cable, the lifeline to a project still alive is left attached to the remaining cheese still life. Its demise coming painfully slow. What a wonderful idea that Grahame still wanted to give the last, stubborn quince time to change and blend in more with the other rotting elements. Grahame hopes that it will change the color slightly enough not to look green anymore.
The one odd, stubborn quince - so different from all the others. But Grahame can't wait beyond Friday. He needs to start post production to finish in time for the biennial. Timing is already tight. Not really even a month taking travel, prep and testing into consideration. The interruption of the first phase of the project in the second week really set us behind.
Perhaps it is also possible that Grahame's willingness to wait the additional few days and his desire to see the quince change is just an excuse for not wanting to part with the project. He has been tending to it for the last four months, and on daily basis for much of that time. Perhaps the passing of his father at the start of the project is something that keeps him holding on to the thought of the still living. Maybe he doesn't really want to shut the project down, despite its repulsive at this time character.
Time to disconnect computers. The umbilical chords of technology are now severed. No longer will I sit in the studio for hours looking at the images of the two set ups to observe the activity while sitting in the computer section of the studio. However harsh the severance, nevertheless promising something wonderful - the collection of images that Grahame will now work on to come up with the result for the final presentation of the project.
Lemons (I hesitate), how could I possibly throw them out?
Grahame and I, heavy duty black rubber gloves on, we start throwing things out. It's awkward nonetheless. Do we take it apart one rotten element at a time, do we cover the entire still life and turn it upside down? I'm still used to the way the sculptures froze when no more changes took place. Rotten, dry, discarded of their vibrance sculptures. But sculptures aren't made to be thrown out. I can't look at them thinking they are nothing but a pile of waste. Best to just bring the huge heavy duty bags and be done with it.
However disgusted with and wanting to get rid of them, Grahame I feel, seems to shrug at the idea of throwing out (or trapping without the possibility of escaping its confinement) any living matter. A bit cautious at walking up close to the cauliflower still life where the mice had its primary home, he asks, "What about the mice?" I kick the crate and make some commotion so that they will run away.
Grahame is standing several steps away. I hate to see them multiply and contribute to the already rodent ridden environment (but where in NYC is it not that?) but too hate to kill anything alive.
It seems however, that the mice had already anticipated their involuntary eviction. None are around - something unlikely with the population of the baby mice that have come about in the last wee or two. The eviction thought puts me back to my, involuntary displacement. I have to concentrate on the still lives so not to let loose of my emotions. In this project, I have found so many metaphors to my life. (I am reminded of the first studio shutdown having to go through the process of discarding and moving by myself, when one mouse scurried for her life down the elevator shaft.)
I choke tears as those metaphors run through my mind and as I focus on the remnants of the beautiful cauli flowerets. The source of nourishment, the life we tended to during the last few months, something we nurtured, appreciated, marveled at, laughed at and got disgusted with....Now it's time to put our heavy gloved hands on the set up and cut sharply to its end.
But the lemons.... I say holding the platter while thinking of how, and whether I could still save the still life. It is so beautiful and it hurts to throw out. Grahame on one end holding the black garbage bag, I on the other end, we turn the platter upside down and they don't fall. Stuck to the platter, the still life holds on as if reminding us that even in this disgusting stage there is more beauty than one can imagine.
Now, left only from the rich, vibrant and still intriguing though rotted, but beautiful still life just a small pile of dirt from the crate that held up the sculpture. The crate that protected all the secrets of the life that happened beneath the still life.
And the cheese set up, with the last stubborn quince. Still standing and victorious, if only for few more days.
I have gotten so used to the imagery of the three still lives. It feels odd after we cleared the room of the two. Just as I did on many occasions, I decide to come back and shoot in the evening. And today, it will be more interesting to see the reaction of mice. I know they will come running to the place where the stain is left on the floor from the cauliflower set up. I am curious to observe their reactions to the absence of something that was so familiar to them. However disgusting the thought of the rodents may be, this was still their "home." It has been suddenly yanked away from them, or they have been displaced from it. But they would probably still keep coming back to that spot, expecting to find what was once their source of nourishment and all that the rodent life considers their "homes" to be.
I am curious as to what will happen and how they will go about making the cheese still life the only one home available now to them in our studio.