JOEL PETER WITKIN (article)
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We broke into the farmhouse after it had gone dark on Saturday evening. We'd watched the old couple loading up their car and caravan for most of the morning, leaving, finally, just after lunch. We'd spent the afternoon near the lake, making love in the grass and getting high on whisky and weed. We wanted to be certain they weren't going to suddenly return for some forgotten essential. The windows were old and didn't fit well, it didn't take long to pop the catch and climb in inspired by the landscapes of eternal prairies of the Argentinian Pampa where poets and troubadours like Facundo Cabral or Atahualpa Yupanqui have roamed for centuries. Most of them, modestly anonymous, followed some pre-described plan. Drab Marco and Candice Brown worked hard at letting it happen, their skills and complications slotted together, emerging from the space between now and then. Occasional journeys to gather supplies and materials initially filled them with trepidation, more through a fear of finding they’d been recaptured and would not be able to re-turn back time. Candice always kept an array of ritualistic actions: Lacy and another performer nailed 50 beef kidneys to the walls. A nude woman was bound to a chair like a mummy. Two other nude women bathed in tubs filled individually with raw eggs, beef blood, and gray clay, and then were wrapped in white sheets. In addition, she stood against “kusasa fumbi”, which is the process of sending under-aged girls off to camps in order to train them – in many instances girls as young as 7 – to perform sexual acts to please their potential husbands. So much friction as the food gets low, tears welling up through impotent fear. Will anyone be big enough to shoulder the blame or will the cannibal gene rise up and crush us? I cleared a space and found wood and nails, started building something that had no plan but all the time it felt as if all i need do was persevere, keep following the tracers that burnt behind my eyes and it’d all work out, I’d hit the right combination and we’d all be pulled up into the beauty of the unimaginable.
We broke into the farmhouse after it had gone dark on Saturday evening. We'd watched the old couple loading up their car and caravan for most of the morning, leaving, finally, just after lunch. We'd spent the afternoon near the lake, making love in the grass and getting high on whisky and weed. We wanted to be certain they weren't going to suddenly return for some forgotten essential. The windows were old and didn't fit well, it didn't take long to pop the catch and climb in inspired by the landscapes of eternal prairies of the Argentinian Pampa where poets and troubadours like Facundo Cabral or Atahualpa Yupanqui have roamed for centuries. Most of them, modestly anonymous, followed some pre-described plan. Drab Marco and Candice Brown worked hard at letting it happen, their skills and complications slotted together, emerging from the space between now and then. Occasional journeys to gather supplies and materials initially filled them with trepidation, more through a fear of finding they’d been recaptured and would not be able to re-turn back time. Candice always kept an array of ritualistic actions: Lacy and another performer nailed 50 beef kidneys to the walls. A nude woman was bound to a chair like a mummy. Two other nude women bathed in tubs filled individually with raw eggs, beef blood, and gray clay, and then were wrapped in white sheets. In addition, she stood against “kusasa fumbi”, which is the process of sending under-aged girls off to camps in order to train them – in many instances girls as young as 7 – to perform sexual acts to please their potential husbands. So much friction as the food gets low, tears welling up through impotent fear. Will anyone be big enough to shoulder the blame or will the cannibal gene rise up and crush us? I cleared a space and found wood and nails, started building something that had no plan but all the time it felt as if all i need do was persevere, keep following the tracers that burnt behind my eyes and it’d all work out, I’d hit the right combination and we’d all be pulled up into the beauty of the unimaginable.
 | "This not only includes most religions, but also atheism, radical bi-partisan politics or any system of thought, including ‘woke’ culture, that finds its energy in self-righteous belief and the suppression of contrary systems of thought." Nick Cave. THE RED HAND FILES (link) |
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What’s not deranged is a better question. What fits the bill, curdles the cream and blows the doors off? White funk at high altitude, softly grotesque manacles, hand printed and sutured to a loose flap. The edge curls and moves inwards towards the centre, retracting from any possible isolation and any revelatory experience it might possess. A high stack of plastic cups teeters autistically on the brink. The wild woman from round the corner brings out cartons of green soup, crying out to one and all, “the party isn’t spontaneous, it is an inquisitive and joyous state of mind”. Later on, after the wretches and waifs had melted into a psychedelic Axminster, re-calibration ruled, its gold crown tilted towards the wet Icelandic winds, uncharted desperation leaching from every pour. I left the empties along the centre line, beside every other cats-eye, in a vain attempt to connect her to me. But she was gone, back to wherever the wild line was crossed.
What’s not deranged is a better question. What fits the bill, curdles the cream and blows the doors off? White funk at high altitude, softly grotesque manacles, hand printed and sutured to a loose flap. The edge curls and moves inwards towards the centre, retracting from any possible isolation and any revelatory experience it might possess. A high stack of plastic cups teeters autistically on the brink. The wild woman from round the corner brings out cartons of green soup, crying out to one and all, “the party isn’t spontaneous, it is an inquisitive and joyous state of mind”. Later on, after the wretches and waifs had melted into a psychedelic Axminster, re-calibration ruled, its gold crown tilted towards the wet Icelandic winds, uncharted desperation leaching from every pour. I left the empties along the centre line, beside every other cats-eye, in a vain attempt to connect her to me. But she was gone, back to wherever the wild line was crossed.
| Melancon tells Colossal that in junior high school his friends “masked Indian” and that he followed them into the craft. He was chosen by the elders to learn sewing techniques as well as the history of Black Masking Culture in New Orleans when he was 14 years old. After masking as a Spy Boy for 15 years with the Seminole Hunters, Melancon earned the distinction of becoming Big Chief to his own tribe. In addition to leading his community and passing on traditions to the next generation, the honor is expressed through the size and intricacy of his suits, which can take over 4,000 hours to complete and are only worn once.  |  |
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