I presented this installation for ‘Art on the Trails’ at Beal’s Preserve, an outdoor exhibition in which spectators walk around a trail and discover artworks. The theme of the exhibition was ‘Marking Territory’ and my piece showcased a bed in nature, questioning the way in which humans try to mark our territory through the idea of the home. This installation explored how the safety of home is a false narrative and a way of shutting out nature when we would be better to embrace it. The bed frame and bed side table was inscribed with a series of poems in the style of children’s nursery rhymes, reflecting the fake tales we tell ourselves about the impermeability of the home.
Here are some examples of the poems:
Leave
Sit, in pallid sunshine
In the dusk before the dawn.
Fiery leaves play parachute
Torpedo en eye-holes.
The pause in the sonata
The breath before the Word
The, “Is it over?”
“Can we clap yet?” ― “Wait! ―” Infatuation
Nerves.
Autumn air on porous skin
Hop-scotches in, a round;
A kind hand cups your cheek
A smile
A balmy palm
A while―
It’s so delicious, isn’t it?
The cat has gone to sleep.
He’s curled up like a croissant
― There ―
There, dunk your head back
Breathe.
The blanket of warm water welcomes
You with open arms.
A safety-pin of liquid
And the buoying brush of wind.
Sit under this fir tree with me
The branches warm our bones
Long and loving covering
Mother’s arms never grow old.
Hot smog of vodka
Sticks in chest
And hums around your bones.
Shoes in the charity shop
And, what do you have to show for it?
What’s left of all that now?
The shoes have gone to the charity shop
And the clock has struck half-four.
Never again, those wings built-in
That whirling through the sky.
The jump, the leap
Cloud-ravaging, sweet —!
Pirouette
Almighty, high.
We were so close
In those days, then
To touching heaven’s gates
— Could taste the stratosphere, in leaps
With perfect landings, straight.
But the rug beneath your feet
Is gone
And the ballet shoes you chose
In the squeaky-floorboard’d dancers’ shop
At seven, with bulging eyes
Are old and matted
— Unravelled seam-ends, with
Broken, elast-less ties.
Old friends are put inside a box
Sellotaped and sealed and left
Outside the door of the charity shop
Plastic wrapped in plastic-wrap.
Because the feet no longer love those shoes.
The feet no longer can.
And what happened to those heels?
Those toes? Those heads, and shoulders?
— Damn.
Claire Marie Watt, Author 