It started with a desire for fabric to fall, and for it to give me yellow silhouettes. It was sparked by ideas of creation and procreation. This set piece had to contain the time I thought maybe I met Vincent, that maybe he was with me. That moment of perfect union of course changed everything – in my play, a new character was created. She was born, she was my imagination, and she parted with known facts and I knew that. But she allowed me to imagine his smile.
Now staging this (pro)creation is tricky. In my head it necessitated a yellow tent that would allow me to cast silhouettes, that would then transform into a canopy that revealed the true action – that I was not kissing Vincent at all, it was my imaginary him.
I wanted silhouettes from inside a tent-like structure, then the fabric was to be raised into a canopy position. Inside the tent had to be enough room to dance. That my original plans looked at all like a flower truly did not dawn on me. All I knew was that I wanted the space itself to blossom into impressionism and color as Vincent did about half-way through his career. From colorless to colorful.
I also wanted christmas lights as stars towards the end of the play. What ended up occurring (design and construction developed by myself as well as Shannon O’Neil, Timothy Caldwell & Amy Buckler) was something truly marvelous that is now a piece of art in my apartment.
The center circle of midnight blue speckled with christmas lights is six feet in diameter, with four long yellow chiffon petals at about ten feet. For most of the play, the lights were not on, and a yellow sunflower layer with smaller petals covered the night stars from view.
For months my boyfriend and I have been plotting how we can pack it up, but we’ve never desired to pack it up, and now when we finally move out of the space in three weeks, we are going to bring the sunflower to hang it up in our new apartment. It is simply too beautiful and awesome to put in storage.
Photography by Timothy Caldwell
I never dreamt that I would be left with such an incredible art piece to live with forever, that I might always be able to see stars in my apartment, no matter the weather. In my apartment we often shout — let’s turn on the stars! It’s awfully fun to say.
I realize now that it is the gift that Vincent gave back to me. I gave him a play, my heart, and my life for a few years… and he gave me stars forever.
My brain has been a blizzard for a year. The debris is only now just settling down. I need to sleep a lot these days — I suppose to compensate for all the sleeping I didn’t do this summer. I digest my memories. The dream came to its natural end, but I was and still am awake. Vincent lingers like a scent.
It’s been a month since the only Van Gogh painting on public display in all of the continent of Africa (something that has been quite clear to me ever since making my map of the locations of Vincent’s paintings) was stolen.
Amazingly, this is the second time this very painting was stolen from this museum, which brought to light how lax the Cairo security has been in its museums for some time. The people in charge in Cairo said they would amend such problems as only 7 of 43 security cameras actually functioned.
I smiled when reading all this, and decided to wait a month before I moved the sticker or wrote anything. I smiled because this is so Van Gogh. Needless to say, the 296 colored spot that marks this painting will have to be moved from Cairo and placed under “Whereabouts Unknown”. The last time the painting was stolen, it took ten years to recover. Any bets for this time? Ah, we’ll see. At least it’s one of his lesser paintings.
Would you steal a Van Gogh painting?
As long as I knew I wouldn’t be caught, I totally would! I wouldn’t keep it forever, but… even just one year with one of Vincent’s paintings in my home would be an experience I would never, ever forget. And I think the world could wait a year.
In the meantime, I wanted to bring your attention to some of the more innovative Van Gogh developments I’ve encountered.
So immersive! Click on the link above to see more, they are pretty awesome.
And also, look at this incredibly creative and thoughtful animated video showing time passing in Vincent’s Bedroom — using bits and pieces from his other paintings (Starry Night in the window, a self-portrait in the mirror).
Lastly, the Vincent necklace I’ve been wearing for nearly two years has broken three times in one month. I have to get a new chain now. At first, all this made me feel a bit uneasy. Am I holding onto something that needs to be let go? Am I forcing something? Does Vincent want to get away?
The reality is that this is at least partly due to my wearing one necklace non-stop for over a year, but (and I only figured this out just now) also because it’s time for renewal. We are moving now from play to book. Time to get a new chain.
Oh, and did I mention the painting clips inside got water damaged mysteriously during the run of the show?
I don’t know when it happened. But it makes them look old. I like that.
I have found it difficult to answer that question: how does it feel? And I’ve been asked it more than a few times. It feels weird. It feels amazing. I am proud of what I’ve done. I think it was good. Perhaps, unusually good.
I keep returning to Vincent’s phrase: “A canvas that I cover is worth more than a blank canvas.” I think I feel somewhat similarly.
It’s only now that I feel the benefit of some perspective. Even so, I feel silly talking at all. I learned many, many things. I learned the things I need that I thought I could get away without. I learned a good bit about my writing. I learned a good bit about performing my writing. I will still learn many more things in the months to come. My journal is full of reflections. I will keep looking back for some time now, I know.
For if I dove head-first down an ancient roaring waterfall, if I spent years mapping its terrain so that I might reveal its surprising depths and shallows (but not lose my head), if I then made that dive 16 times between July 29th and August 31st this year, then now I sit on the shore and consider it all once more — this time, seeing the entirety; this time, knowing it in my bones.
photography by Shannon O'Neil
During the run, I listened intently and quietly to the opinions of those around me who saw. I tried to absorb their points of view, and let them impact me. It is hard to know what is right, who is right, when opinions contradict, clash… the cacophony became dizzying at points. But there is always room for improvement, so I listen. I will keep listening to their words, and someday I’ll look at the script again and improve it.
This is not the end, but a new beginning for Vincent’s Yellow. I would like to tour with the show. To the Northeast (I’m thinking Massachusetts and New York City), and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. Of course, now I’m back in the position of the penniless artist, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s possible and when.
I am also going to begin the labor of putting the book together. I have many writings from the past four years since I met you, Vincent. It’s time to gather together the pieces – and bring in history, and myth, and you as well – and design the puzzle of a book I have in my head. It will stand as a tribute to the journey, to you, to a path not often chosen.
When I talk to people about how I feel about you, Vincent, there is one description that I think does it best: You are a man who took a path I always wanted to take but was too scared to choose. Your letters are a traveler’s diary, they showed me it could be done and warned of the ramparts that would have to be scaled. Your life speaks of the sacrifice necessary. Your myth reveals the rewards. Make art honestly, beautifully, with your whole spirit… and humanity will hear you. What you make may become eternal.
I will do my best from now on to remain faithful, dedicated. I am on the path.
What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest.
Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody.
This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.
Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music.
"..art is something greater and higher than our own skill or knowledge or learning. [Art] is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from man's soul..."
Vincent van Gogh, letter from March 1884
Twelve years ago, like many others, I fell in love with Vincent van Gogh. I followed this love, never letting go, reading about him and visiting his paintings all I could, and I am still journeying - I hope you will join me, Reader. This path has led me to you and you to me, and both of us to beauty, to art, to life, to death and to something greater...
