wangechi getting married

just before bed, the peanut sat herself in a corner of my office, and made the following declaration...

'i am the queen of nothing! in my kingdom, there is nothing'!
nai tried to join in her game, 'and i am your king!'
'NO! i have no king. there is NOTHING in my kingdom'.

now, i suppose i could read a lot into her statement...perhaps she is mirroring some sort of emptiness she senses around her. perhaps she is recognizing her sovereignty even though she has yet to amass worldly possesion. in either case she offered a perfect balance, the yin of tabula rasa to the yang of abbondaza which was wangechi getting married...

saturday afternoon a bus picked guests up at the foot of the brooklyn bridge and drove us out to westhampton. as we disboarded we were directed to follow a path of flowers to the 'art barn', a veritable museum in the woods of a private estate, for cocktails and visual provocation.

the tall man and i both had to pee, and we discovered we were not alone. these two had beaten us to the facilities.

i wish i could tell you who the artist is. i wish i could share a funny anecdote about how the artist and the collector came to the decision that the very best place for the work was in the bathroom. but i can't. because from the moment we stepped into the loo, i was mesmerized.

i was unable to speak for some time. i strolled around the barn, which isn't really a barn at all. the space was amazing...

i loved this piece that pulled at whatever is ancient in me...
and this one
it was 'the thousand and one nights'. each vignette written on tiny scrolls in the original arabic; each story a tiny paper bead, the strand suspended from the ceiling then coiling on the floor twenty odd feet below.

to be completely honest, a lot of the work surrounding me simply reminded me that i was traversing uncharted territory; i was a foreigner with a temporary visa to the world of contemporary art.

these were hand-stitched and quilted sides of beef. as a fiber artist, i was completely moved by the craftsmanship. as a freak of nature i thought it was insane and amusing.

but as someone who wants to support her family with her handiwork only slightly less than i wish to see us hand a cleaner, more peaceful world to the next generation, i have to say, 'what the...'?

i can only imagine what these pieces translate to in terms of cold, hard cash. i guess that's crass. i guess i have revealed myself to be a complete neanderthal. all i can say to explain myself is...

'ugh'.

and i don't mean the boots.

although the poetry here was not lost, even to a cavewoman such as myself. the tall man with the penis...
...and the short man with the penis.

(read what you will into the relative proportions of the two and their appendages)

after cocktails (pun recognized, though not intended), we were once again encouraged to follow a path of petals to the tent which would house the main event.

perhaps tabernacle would be a more fitting term. it was palatial. this is the view of the 'big house' from the tent...
this is the tall man in front of my favorite of all the creative works; a fallen 'nurse log' in front of the long island sound .

i wonder how long it has graced the property?

serge spitzer's 'treework' shielded the tent. a graceful umbrella. it actually let in the rain, while feeling like an antenna/observatory to the firmament.
and once inside the tent itself...

magic

light
and dancing girls

we have footage of the women in mario's family formally requesting that the women of wangechi's family accept mario's request that she become his wife, as well as a member of their household. one of her aunties called out a chant and the rest of the women would respond. they processed from the big house dropping palm fronds in front of wangechi, as her feet were not to touch the ground.

it was the most moving part of the ceremony. so intimate that i don't feel right posting it.

but you can imagine it, right?

the tall man
chatted with the host as wangechi received gifts from her aunties.
the cake melted along with our hearts and the rain and the night.

all in all a reminder of an incredible abundance, ripe for the picking from the tree of life. where is the abundance in your life?