Projected onto a puddle of locally dug clay slip on the floor, the video shows me repeatedly rubbing my face across a disintegrated basin of raw clay. My hair and dress are caked in the ochre-colored red clay. The handmade dress worn in the video is hung above and behind the video as if the garment stood up from the action. Materials are repeated from ground to garment. The clay on the floor of the gallery is the same clay in the video projected onto it which was sourced from the region the video was shot in and is the clay that remains on the dress. This integration and layering of earth/body/garment/action/video expresses human’s integration with the land and nature. I prostrate myself to a basin of raw clay filled with cool fresh water. I joyfully and ritualistically wash my face and hair in the deep red clay of my region. Furthering this relationship, the actions resulted in a disintegration of the basin, a melding of my body and material, and the clay pressed back into the land.
The garment stands as evidence of the extent of my full body immersion with clay. I handmade the garment to have control over all the aesthetic elements. In reference to being raised in the Religious Society of Friends attending Quaker Meeting, I chose a simple, pragmatic pattern with oversized pockets and a simple drawstring waist to reference the tenant of Simplicity[1]. There is pleasure in making and pleasure in the tactile qualities of these materials. Cotton muslin is soft and light across the body. Slip is cool, silky, slippery, and holds the rusty full scent of earth.
Pleasure is sensory wisdom that guides us to our life purpose and calling. A source of knowledge so effective, institutions seeking power build shame around it to gain control over culture and society. In the book Pleasure Activism, adrienne maree brown writes, “Oppression makes us believe that pleasure is not something that we all have equal access to. One of the ways that we start doing the work of reclaiming our full selves — our whole liberated, free selves — is by reclaiming our access to pleasure.”
[1] One of the major testimonies of Friends, it [Simplicity] means living without extravagance. Sincerity and honesty at the heart and center of the person. Simplicity is maintained as a testimony by Friends and evidenced in many ways: dress, manner of worship, decoration of meetinghouses, clarity of spirit in all relationships in order that a person may give time and money to the most meaningful things. quaker.org/glossary
