SHARE 6

6.15.10. prompt: SPLIT

Artists:
carrie seitzinger, poet
chris haberman, artist
daniella molnar, illustrator
hannah pass, writer
gary hirsch, improviser/artist
shelley darcy, improviser

returning SHARE artists: greg day, filmmaker; sara guest, poet; dave benz, artist; margaret malone, writer; kathleen lane, writer

Daniela Molnar: "Split" made me think of splitting – leaving abruptly and without a trace. This brought me back to a topic I've been exploring visually for a while, that of colony collapse disorder, or the sudden and unexplained disappearance of honeybees. Essentially, entire hives just vanish. A more thorough explanation can be found here, but don't expect answers -- nobody really knows why this is happening, what's causing it, or how exactly to make it stop. Some theories point convincingly to pesticide use, but overall it seems that the bees may be reacting against the aggregate insanity of big agribusiness rather than one easily identifiable solution. 

Thinking about the bees led me to thinking about the vast, arcane movement of animals in general, how migratory animals seem to disappear, then (hopefully) reappear each year. Pictured here is a Laysan Albatross skull. Laysan albatrosses are big, stately, graceful birds and powerful long-range flyers. They are nearing extinction due to a variety of factors, most notably the ingestion of lead in lead-based paint chips from abandoned Navy buildings on one of their main nesting sites. They are also regular victims of fatally ingesting the huge amount of trash floating in the ocean. So these birds, too, are in danger of disappearing permanently.

With a background in scientific illustration, I often appropriate methods and materials used in traditional technical illustration in order to simultaneously uphold and question the objectivity of science.

Built To Split by artist Chris Haberman

Chris: I collected two random pieces of office furniture and random paints, pens and material before I arrived at SHARE.  At the workshop, I fused the two desk tops together, almost like a table with a sheaf, which created a seam between the pieces, or a "split".  When I first got the word from SHARE, a theme began to develop which inevitably would deal with relationships and the split that happens between people.  I quickly painted a thick background with house paint, wiping paint so it would dry faster and then sketching out main figures.  I continued to layer paint until the figures began to emerge, as well as textual elements, including SPLIT, SPILT, LOVE, etc.  The play on words of course then began to pour out: MS. STRESS (mistress), SEEM (seam), etc., which then began a dialogue between the male and female figures.  Often in my work the characters are motionless, but the world around them is alive with text and backstory.  I filled in the top of the work with elements of weather (clouds, rain, bits of sunshine) to show a changing pattern around them, while the bottom become a puzzle and scene of their former life together.  The "lovers" (titled "Mom Me" and "Pa Pa") are undoubtedly parents, surrounded by their friends, children and physical manifestations of their life together - items that hang in the balance, or were the cause/effect of the SPLIT.  A bro/ken home is referenced as well as coping mechanisms of alcohol bottles, etc.  Although the painting may seem sad, I feel that both characters are trying to reverse the SPLIT and be together, which is supported by the secondary characters, but perhaps too much has happened in the past to bring them together. 

Split

by Hannah pass

Hannah: When I first received the prompt split, I thought of the verb as a catalyst that causes some form of tension between two things. So in this beginning, you have the 'split' of two people desperately trying to have a baby, but also another object – the spit tree – that divides their attention.

After the lightening hit, the tree looks like a split end. A broken brown hair sticking up out of the earth, amongst dandelions. Two white lawn chairs.

It was a sad sound. The crack. Then the rip that ran though its entire body. A limb torn off like peeled wallpaper and thrown on to the floor.

Tim takes a sip of his coffee. We are sitting at our kitchen table and staring out at the the fallen tree limb blocking our walkway, one end flattening a bush, the other digging into the lawn. Our new collection of dispersed leaves. From the window it looks almost as long as five of our bodies, but more ribbed. Aggressively naked.

I imagine how heavy it will be to move the limb and then I remember how I can hardly lift a small dog.

“Well?” Tim says.

The night before, we tried to made a baby for the eleventh time. I finally let Tim skip the foreplay.

“Maybe it's my egg,” I say. “Maybe it's just stubborn.”

“What?” he says. “Why would you say that?” He pokes at his breakfast. I watch the yoke drain out onto his plate, how the bread unwillingly has to suck it up. We are looking around the room, trying to avoid each others' eyes.

The afternoon, neighbor kids sprout from our lawn. They skin bark off the limb. Wrap it around their tiny heads, into hats. Into crowns. They hollar in that high voice that kids make which makes me feel both happy and irritated at the same time. Without permission, they declare the fallen tree limb their ship and our lawn their sea.

“Hey!” I yell out the window. “Leave it alone,” I say. With my arms, I charade how I am fed up. A sort of flapping. The children fill their arms with sticks and leaves, then scatter back to their homes.

I follow Tim in living room where he is watching sports on TV. It could be anything for him. As long as there are bodies colliding.

“What are we going to do?” I say.

“About what?” Tim says. “The tree?”

“No. Well, yes.” I say.

“The tree then?” he says.

"Yeah," I say. "The tree.'

 “Or the baby?” he says.

A week passes and the limb in still on our lawn. Now, with a layer of beetles. Moss. Neighbors leave angry notes on our doors. The tree looks skinnier now, wrinkled.

One morning when Tim is at work, I watch a squirrel run across a branch. His cheeks round with nuts. The tree branch cracks like a wishbone – the squirrel tumbles - and I feel the snap deep in the pit of my belly. I rub my stomach and try to feel cells exploding or dividing or doing whatever cells are suppose to do. Splitting to make a person. I think about rolling the tree limb into the road and totaling a car.

Dave Benz' Split

Dave: This is a self-portrait as a rabbit. In the past few years I've been through several life-changing transformational experiences. I am definitely still in transition. This may be what it looks like from the inside.

Two by poet Sara Guest:

Chartres. You sew up the part you once split. Hooves uproot butter in painful sweeps. The rubber eats every first flame. I drink holes into myself so you can fill them. Tie safer and safer knots. A weather vein unloads the darker waves. Anonymity for the retelling. This wedge to wash away everything you told me you needed. And night’s slovenly whine.

Osiris. Lands we knew belong to someone else. Spires crouching in wait. Slugs like raisins along the fabulous split. We buy the dock a new pinwheel and heave forward. Small roads loveless in hell’s noxious pitch. Sweet baring down on the marmalade. I take a mortgage on the bed you broke with your spout. Put more acid on it. Tow away toward a liquid sky. Re-canyon what you refused to blow out. 

Gary Hirsch: I am interested in stories. Incomplete and co-created stories in my illustrations, paintings and as an improviser. Shelley and I wanted to try something that combined both art and improv. It was really all about constraints. With Share, artists get 2 hours to make something, but improvisers don't need 2 hours , they get a prompt and create something instantly, so we asked what is the offer of the 2 hours ( how could we use it?) I decided to make some images inspired by the prompt of Split for the two hours of making time.These would have empty dialogue bubbles. We would then improvise a scene ( in this case a scene about a date between a teacher and 17 year old student) and throughout the scene we would hold up a drawing, the audience would fill in the dialogue inspired by the image, and we would then use it immediately in the scene....confused? We were too, but it was really fun to play with, and we found a story about a couple of people that can only feel truly liberated by inflicting themselves with things they hate (cloves, cat, etc). Now you're really confused...