Experiencing the Broad Senses of performance in Marshall, North Carolina by Quinn Dukes

Joseph Ravens in performance at Broad Sense, Marshall, NC | photo by Vela Oma, 2018.

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BROAD SENSE: Interviews and Event Recap
Marshall, North Carolina
By Quinn Dukes
@quinndukes

Last October, six artists from across the United States were welcomed to the picturesque mountains of Marshall, North Carolina by curators and performance artists, Alice Vogler  and Vela Oma for their multi-experiential event, Broad Sense.

​I was delighted to receive an invitation to perform in Broad Sense despite the NYC stress cyclone I was managing at the time. I knew it would be a logistical challenge but the promise of nature, crisp air and performing with a group of artists that I have known and respected for years was irresistible. So, I fled NYC. Flight delays led to nearly missing my rental car pickup but I successfully retrieved my car and drove two hours to a magical place in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, I awoke to the sounds of event preparation and artist discussions of material, performance site location and politics. Collectively, the 6 of us (Sandy Huckleberry, Jeff Huckleberry, Joseph Raven, Phil Fryer (Moondrawn), Coorain Devin and yours truly) performed across multiple locations on the 7-acre property for 9 hours. 

After Broad Sense concluded, I reached out to Vela, Alice and all participating artists to preserve the event's memory from multiple perspectives. Performance art documentation typically counts on visual documentation but in a campfire discussion, we realized that our collective memories write the history of performance. It was a beautiful weekend of local community exploring unknown paths in sporadic rain showers to discover durational outdoor actions. I am pleased to share the event through the words of the artists and thoughtful curators. 

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ALICE VOGLER, co-curator for BROAD SENSE, Marshall, NC | photo by Sandy Huckleberry, 2018.

QUINN DUKES: What sparked the vision for Broad Sense?
ALICE VOGLER + VELA OMA: After living in Boston for 20+ years, something made us ask ourselves - are we staying here? And the answer was no. We were ready for a new challenge, a new adventure, a new pace. We chose the Asheville, NC area because it was Alice’s hometown, her family is here and it is beautiful. Also the cost of living was way less. We originally planned to start a performance art residency program here in the mountains due in part to the rich history of work that came out of Black Mountain College and the interesting pull that these mountains had on so many incredible artists that greatly influenced art as we know it today. We hunted for a home and a piece of land that inspired us, that was secluded, but also accessible. We found our home on Windswept Ridge Road in Marshall, which is about 20 minutes north of Asheville. We knew right away that we wanted to do get something going right away. So we starting thinking about hosting a performance event here. We reached out to Revolve Gallery to see if they might be interested in partnering with us on an outdoor, site specific performance event and they said yes. We felt that it was important to work with a local organization due to our lack of connections to the community and performance audience here.

Our curatorial work over the last 10+ years has been focused on pushing the norm of how performance art is viewed and experience both by the artists creating the work and by the audience viewing the work.

The traditional performance art event usually consists of 3-8 performances, each being anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour. This exhibition structure exists all over the world – in festivals, in galleries, in little alternative spaces. It controls and dictates how performance art is experienced and curated. Broad Sense aimed to under mind this format.

Our vision was simple - invite artist that we respect and know, invite them to push themselves and their work in relationship to this piece of land and to consider time in a different way.
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QD: How did you decide on the meal component of the event?
AV + VO: Meal time has always been one of Alice’s favorite components when she has traveled for performance events, but usually the meals are just planned for the artists participating in the event and a few chosen others. Alice has also been apart of hosting and creating eating / dining experiences in her own performance work, but again it was always for a chosen group of people, usually for logistical reasons. For Broad Sense we really wanted the dinner piece to be for everyone - the audience and the artists. We wanted it to showcase some of the amazing locally grown and made food that is readily available in this area.  

QD: Now that the event has concluded, does your land/home feel different?
AV + VO: Different areas of the land drew in different artists - which allowed us to see our space and land in a different way, so yes, our land and home do feel different. That was expected though and we were very happy with how all the work found it’s right spot, it’s perfect location(s).

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sandy huckleberry

San Diego-based performance artist, Sandy Huckleberry, bravely powered through the heavy rain over the course of several hours to plant a cherry tree.

QD: What led you to select the cherry tree?
SANDY HUCKLEBERRY: I asked Alice what she and Vela would like if I planted a tree, and she said a fruit tree of some kind. At Reem’s Nursery I asked the very knowledgeable old tree guy what he would recommend and he led me to the cherry trees. I chose the smallest and hardiest, because I’ve heard the youngest trees have the easiest time adjusting to their new homes.
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As to why I wanted to plant a tree, I’ve been tuning in to a yearning to be in nature, to feel as if I belong to it, and I thought taking time planting a tree would allow me time to be out in it. Of course, I ended up choosing the most tamed part of the property, so I guess this city girl isn’t ready to go all the way out into it!
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QD: Do you have any unique performance moments or post performance reflections that you wish to share?
SH: As soon as I saw the little creek running through the place, I knew I wanted to connect to it somehow during my performance. I really enjoyed the physical sensations: Holding all those empty canning jars, swinging them by their wire handles, hearing them clink clink and singing “Moonshine Lullaby” while I walked through the woods to place them in the stream. Digging the hole for the tree, jumping the shovel down into the ground, breaking up the red clay with my hands to mix it with the compost. Alice’s amazing sausage soup when I came in. Feeling the cold and rain and dusk on my skin and the freezing creek water on my feet. All great. The ceremony for the tree? The singing, bells, lighting the candles, pouring the creek water. Maybe I would have printed out the lyrics so people could sing with me. Also encouraged people to scatter their “lanterns” in other places in addition to the tree.

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coorain devin

Coorain Devin in performance at BROAD SENSE, Marshall, NC | 2018

Coorain Devin | BROAD SENSE, Marshall, NC | photo by Vela Oma

Atlanta-based artist, Coorain Devin, presented a hysterical and poignant infomercial on a product that promised to change my life and available in 12 colors.

QD: Have you performed an infomercial in nature before?
COORAIN DEVIN: I have not! My recent work has been focused on media and the mediated world, so I was anxious to be presenting this work live, without any mediation. American culture gives so much power to images- images sell to us, entertain us, direct us, even lead us. I am particularly interested with commercial images because they do so much more than sell products to us, they sell ideas about the world and our place in it. But it is rare that we truly interrogate the very images that surround us and dictate social norms. Often times advertisements are dismissed- only foolish rubes fall for them! Yet marketing works- infomercials still work today, whether on TV or the internet.

Relocating this sales pitch that relies on a camera into a live setting where it really doesn’t fit was exciting for me- I wanted to see if highlighted the absurdity of marketing or allowed us a space to really dig into what marketing does. We enjoy being sold to, but what if there is nothing to buy and we are surrounded by a beautiful natural environment? Do we still like it? Can we perform to a live audience but treat it like a camera? Is there something special about a camera does to our reception of particular messages?

QD: How do you prepare yourself for this type of durational work?

CD: First, I try to make sure I am as well rested as possible. For me, a big part of the kind of work I produce is trying to give too much of the emotional labor capitalism asks for. I over caffeinated to reach this over enthusiastic zany place- really I need all the energy I can to maintain the frenzied state of madness that a sales pitch requires. Pretty quickly at Broad Sense I realized this meant I needed to keep warm- I could not keep up with the emotional energy if my body was going to use all its energy to keep warm too.
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Shortly before performing, I give myself a pep talk- and I kind of imagine myself as my own boss. I alternate between trying my hardest to win approval from the boss and being angry at the boss and over performing as a form of insubordination (since I would be “fired” for a real transgression). Honestly, I think about Lucille Ball’s character in I Love Lucy. What would Lucy do to try to please? What keeps her going, even as every attempt to make it big falls flat?

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moondrawn

MOONDRAWN, Broad Sense | Marshall, NC | photo by Vela Oma

Boston-based artist, MOONDRAWN, explored sonics through multiple audio based sound performances that permeated into the body through deep and exploratory drone frequencies. 
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QD: You presented several audio works/actions, do you feel that they were interconnected in concept?

MOONDRAWN aka Phil Fryer: My approach to performing in Broad Sense was to leave the structure of my sound performances as open as possible. Being able to utilize all the different spaces and respond to them allowed me to make a series of Slow recordings that are more tonal and meandering than my usual, structured Moondrawn performances. It was a rare opportunity to take the time during the performances to listen to the ambient symphony around me, and respond to it rather than try to override it. This happened especially when I performed outside. Audience, or lack there of, was also a big factor in these performances. Most were made with few or no witnesses, which left a great deal of space and time to let the work unfold on it’s own.

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jeff huckleberry

JEFF HUCKLEBERRY saved by Alice Vogler's soup post performance | Broad Sense, Marshall, NC | photo by Vela Oma, 2018

San Diego-based artist, Jeff Huckleberry, disappeared into the property for at least 8 hours where he transformed a hidden yet seemingly sacred tree carcass.

QD: What led you to this particular location for your piece?
JEFF HUCKLEBERRY: Vela and Alice found the tree one day and immediately thought of me. I think these old dead trees are really special, but I also just wanted to work in a space that I didn’t have any real experience of...kind of just an encounter between myself and that tree.. I really like the idea of plien air  painting as an excuse for hanging out for a while with a specific spot in the natural environment and opening your awareness to your surroundings and yourself.
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QD: Do you have a specific relationship to the black and hot pink spray paint colors?
JH: Jamie McMurry uses the hot pink spray paint to mark his tools when traveling for work because other worker guys are afraid of pink and won’t take the hot pink tool home with them.  But more that anything else it’s just a good color and I needed something bright. Vela and I did a performance together many years ago in the woods and we used this nice black paint spray bottle and sprayed everything we could find with it. It makes everything look charred and cool, like a burned spot in the woods without actually burning it. It’s  like those big burn spots on the highway where a car has caught on fire. it’s impossible to hide the trace.

QD: Any special post performance reflections?
JH: It’s always an experiment to see what kinds of activities will resonate in the right or wrong way and either help facilitate or get in the way of “something happening” during this kind of work.  I always look back to see if anything of interest actually did happen. - theory/hypothesis/test/evaluate/adjust - In this case I was less satisfied with the how the “doing of the thing” was working and more aligned with, or in tune with just making/adjusting/modifying the space and objects with the tools I had at hand. This is often  less satisfying to me as an art experience and much more satisfying on a material, art making level. They often overlap, and the more they do the better the work gets, but sometimes making outweighs experience and visa versa. A couple of nice things that happened were that the tree and I absorbed a lot of whisky and gin, and reminisced about old times as much as we were able, I got to use a chainsaw in Performance without hurting myself, I didn’t get into any poison Ivy, and Alice’s sausage soup was AMAZING!!! and Vela brought it to me at just the right moment.

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joseph ravens

JOSEPH RAVENS | Broad Sense, Marshall, NC | photo by Vela Oma, 2018

Chicago-based artist and curator, Joseph Ravens engaged with the property in mystical ways - playing with the horizon, the sunset and perception of objects in the foreground. 

Ravens is the founder and director of Defibrillator Gallery which quickly swept up his time upon leaving Broad Sense and returning to Chicago... thus, Ravens was unavailable for post-performance feedback.

I was unable to view the works personally but overheard many viewers speak of the alluring mystery of Raven's actions with the landscape.

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quinn dukes

I'll keep it brief as I prefer to keep the emphasis of this piece on Broad Sense as a whole and not my personal practice. 

I asked viewers and participants to consider sensorial memories to their seat at the table. Together we shared in the smells, tastes, feeling, sight and sounds of the most prominent memory of sitting at a shared table with family, friends or strangers. Responses were written down and sewn between the outline of their laced hand silhouettes. Each viewer had the option to keep their memory or leave it behind. Ultimately, every participant elected to leave their memory behind. 

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BROAD SENSE
​SELECT EVENT IMAGES

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A few final quotes shared by Alice Vogler in relationship to BROAD SENSE:

  Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale. -Elsa Schiaparelli, Italian designer (1890-1973)

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  I sometimes think that the act of bringing food is one of the basic roots of all relationships. - the current (14th) Dalai Lama

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  Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly. - M.F.K. Fisher

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Lastly, I think it is important to extend gratitude to Alice Vogler, Vela Oma, Anna Helgeson and Colby Caldwell at Revolve Gallery, volunteers and audience. Thank you for opening your time, energy and minds to performance art. 

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REVOLVE GALLERY

ALICE VOGLER WEBSITE

VELA OMA WEBSITE