Mushroomville Ballet 2023- 2024
Serving as a receptacle for an empathic response to my daughter entering adolescence, I conceived Mushroomville 20 years ago. As her coming of age triggered a reliving of my own, a cloud of melancholy filled my emotional being. By constructively moving these feelings into an alternate world through drawing and writing, I sensed an opportunity to avoid an unhealthy blurring of boundaries between my daughter and myself. From that point forward, the world of Mushroomville became the conceptual landscape of my creativity. Somehow I saw myself as having purchased valuable psychic real estate within myself solely used to exploit my imagination.
Twenty years after its inception, I have returned to tell the story of Mushroomville in the form of a ballet. Using visual artifacts, drawings, paintings, sculpture and text, this world has continued to expand in my mind. Telling the tale as a series of fragments, I created a protagonist, an adolescent girl named Scout, who narrates each character’s entry into Mushroomville. Working my way into this world with words, I intuitively imagined it onstage with sets, lights, music, singing and dance.
Act 1, The Ballet opens with the projection of a Giant Eye. Color pencil and acrylic paint on paper 16”x 20”
Simone gathered up a few of her belongings. Color pencil and acrylic paint on paper, 9”x 12”
Motivated by her desire to find her mother, Olivia gathered her courage. Color pencil on paper, 9”x 12”
Compelled to know the source of this unfamiliar sound, Simone crawled to the opening of the cave. Color pencil and acrylic paint on paper, 36’x 24”
My mother and I found our portal into Mushroomville through a back door of a laundromat. Color pencil on paper, 12”’x 9”
I am happy here and I am loved. color pencil on paper, 12’’x 9”
Two dancers roll a large oak tree to center stage. Color pencil and acrylic paint on paper, 30”x 40”
Before she leaves she tells Olivia to find her in a place called Mushroomville. Color Pencil on paper, 40”x 80”
Scout perches in a nearby tree, Walk Alone William takes a lap around the stage that gradually becomes a dance. Color pencil and acylic pain on paper
30”x 40”
Simone found a cave just as she had imagined it. Color pencil and acrylic paint on paper, 80”x 60”
Transforming their agony into explosive rage, they dress in florid floor length gowns, tinted the color of blood. Color pencil and acrylic paint paper
30”x 40”
Walk Alone William and Marlena, acrylic on canvas, 4’x 5’