Dear Friends, Family and Art Lovers,
I hope you are all staying well and sheltering in love during this time of the Caronavirus. Now that the majority of peoples and nations are settled into varying degrees of stay-at-home orders, I know there is a lot of reflecting and discussion about what this means for all of our lives and the planet. One of the big themes that has come out of social distancing, is the reality that many feel a sense of isolation.
Some of the people I have been talking a lot about this topic with is a group called Art Practice / Mother practice. They have become a supportive community, with whom I have been meeting monthly with to read critical writings and reflect and write about our experiences on art and motherhood. The founder, Mira Burack, recently prompted us to negotiate the topic of isolation/togetherness, which we are now presenting as readings/performances, in collaboration with the New Mexico State University Art Museum. This online program is being shared in conjunction with the current exhibit, Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020, curated by Marisa Sage and Laurel Nakadate.
I am pleased to invite you to join us for Alone/Together, on zoom, by clicking on this link https://nmsu.zoom.us/j/667823090 on Saturday, April 18, 2020, 1PM, MST. The final product will be a video displayed on UAM.NMSU.EDU. Participating Artists and presentation order are: Danila Rumold, Thais Mather, Sharbani Das Gupta, Isadora Stowe, Jessamyn Lovell, Stephanie Lerma, Zoe Spiliotis, Rachel Popowcer, Karen Mazur, Linda Tratechaud, Megan Jacobs and Mira Burack.
As part of the writing and performance project, I will recite a lovingkindness prayer, while untying naturally dyed strips of canvas that are bound around my body like bandages. By receiving the medicine from botanical plants and the Metta practice, I commit myself to loving myself and the world back together. I invite you, the audience, to participate in this journey that we are alone/together in, by sending your prayers for yourselves, a beloved other, a neutral person, a difficult person and one for all beings, along with your address, to Marisa Sage: misage@nmsu.edu, between April 18th – May 18th. I will write the prayers on the cut off strips and mail them back to you.
May you be safe
May you be well
May you be protected
May you touch great natural peace and freedom.
With Care,
Danila