Motel, the Family Business. Boy Who Played Dead 2024

The images shown here are panels to be joined together and wound into a vertical scroll and placed into a cranking device.  The scroll will be turned as I sing the song and images will be digitally overlaid onto the images passing by the camera.  I will also use a painted black skillet acting as a puppet to pass in front of the scrolling image of the black and white motel floor tiles.

The setting for the story is a pink roadside motel on HWY 280 in Dadeville, Alabama.  I grew up and worked here in my family's business on a hill, over looking the town. 

Ruminations on Red Geographies

Background:

A Crankie is one word for a long, visual scroll that is physically cranked by the performer to tell a story, often accompanied by a song, script, or folk-tale. Versions of illustrated scrolls that use shadow puppetry exist in many other parts of the world, with a long history in Southeast Asia, and a traditional practice in Indonesia, called Wayang Kulit, to illustrate spiritual mythology. Artists in Bali continue to use this mediam to tell contemporary stories to rural communities. 

Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie

In 2021 I was commissioned by California's Ismay Music to make a crankie* for a music video based on the folk song, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie. I reinterpreted the song to be about the death of a horse instead of a cowboy. I also included cowboys of diverse race, gender, and ethnicity  in the piece, which have been often underrepresented in Amercan films. This piece was an exciting exporation of new shadow puppetry techniques which I had time to focus on learning this year. The music you hear is Ismay and the video was filmed and edited by Baltimore's Julia Golonka. 

Hazel Dickens crankies

In 2020 I was commissioned by Willow Garden Films to make two crankies for a documantary about Baltimore musician, folk legend, and activist Hazel Dickens. Many citizens moved to Baltimore to work in factories, to escape the poverty and coal mines of West Virgina. Hazel and her siblings were some of these hard working poor. Hazel went on to become a bastion of the folk music community in Baltimore and then in DC. She also wrote songs of protest bringing awareness to the dangers of the coal mining industry and sexism. I can't share video yet, since the film has not yet been released. 

Between Monument and Montford

This shadow puppet crankie piece, Between Monument and Montford, is based on interviews with Robin Reid, Dan Van Allen,  and the Arabbers* of Baltimore City. It is mainly an oral history of Robin Reid, based on her memories as a young african amercan girl and the connection and magic that the Arabbers brought to her Baltimore neighborhood and her life. Thanks to arabbers who run a stable behind my house and Dan Van Allan, former president of the Arabber Preservation Society I have gotten to know and admire this community as neighbors, collaborators, and as a Baltimore heritage.

Sankofa: Moving Through Moments in Time

This crankie was created as part of The Peale's 2019 Mash-Up grant, read below for more info about that program. This piece was an hour-long performance, written, sung, and performed by Storytellers Anokwale Anansesemfo,  President of the Griots’ Circle of Maryland, and Mama Linda Goss, Co-founder of the National Association of the Black Storytellers, for an opening night at The Peale Musum in the summer of 2019.

We Call It The Red Line

This crankie was performed for the Creative Alliance's Crankie Fest in 2019. It's 15 minutes and appx 150 ft long. It combines personal narrative and family history with Baltimore City's history of transit injustice and racial segregation. A painted scroll, backlighting, paper-cut puppets, and an original sound scape help shape the narrative. Special thanks to Emily Schubert, the curator of Crankie Fest, and puppeteer assistant for this crankie. 

More details:

A Job as the Moon

I had a lovely dream that I was hired to be the Moon. This animation highlights some of that dream.  

The animation happens on a 50' scroll of black tyvek, some of which is filmed under black lights. I set the film to Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy, performed by Amber Short. 

Storytelling Through Images and Performance: "When You Make a Broken Heart" and "Everything is Included"

I believe in the power of our stories, that telling and hearing stories is healing, that building and creating is empowering and that our stories are connected through the objects around us. As a performer and artist, my work explores objects as vocabulary used to tell stories. As a trained actor, clown and puppeteer, I use all of these skills to engage audiences through humor and sadness. I work to communicate beyond words: through music, through the life of objects, and through our shared humanity.
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