How I Became a Performance Artist

"Fire and Art" Performance

Jeanne on the left as "The Supplicant", 

Melissa on the right as the "Priestess of Fire"

Some of you ("Is there anybody out there?" - Pink Floyd) may be wondering why I included "performance artist" in my personal information.  Here's the story. 

Last fall (2009) I was talking with Annette Rawlings, the director of our art museum, at an art opening.  Somehow the conversation came around to performance art, and I told her about a movie I had seen, Legal Eagles, with Robert Redford and Debra Winger.  Daryl Hannah plays a performance artist in the movie who does a great bit with fire as her medium.  "That's great!" Annette enthused.  Later, I got an email from her that said something like, "I hope you will be able to do your fire performance at our spring opening."

 I said to myself, "Say what?!"

Then I sent the youtube clip (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRNZmdb8w9I ) to her, thinking, "When she sees this, she will know that I don't have the technical expertise or Hollywood pyrotechnic backup to do this." 

So Annette looks at the clip and emails back to me something like, "That's great, can't wait to see it."

"Whoa!"  I say to myself, "No way! Now what do I tell Annette?"  Well, while I'm wondering how to respond, an article appears in our local paper, The Andrews Journal, saying that Jeanne Powell will perform a piece called "Fire and Art" at the spring opening.  I send an email to Annette:

"Hi. I have to say I was a little surprised to see my name in the paper saying I was going to perform "Fire and Art." I actually thought that when you saw the YouTube clip I sent you would realize how complex that particular performance would be (not to mention fire department objections).  However, I'm sure I can come up with something for the opening."

And I did come up with something for the opening.  I enlisted the help of my sister, Melissa Watson - Priestess of Fire, and my friend, Tom Jurekovich - Torch Bearer, and a little Fire Sprite, Savannah Horton, and managed to do a pretty good show.  Film at eleven.

Tom, Savannah and Melissa

Restoring or Repurposing?

Earlier this month I received this encouraging email from William Perkins of www.mysavannahmoneypit.com :

"I just saw your comment about your project and have happily started following your blog. Heh, it is very helpful/reassuring/justifying to see that others out there are probably a little unstable all for the love of old buildings. Your building is absolutely lovely! Good luck on every step of the journey. It is like I tell each homeowner who comes into the architectural salvage shop I work at "Just think how happy you will be way way way down the road when you can stand back and say 'this will live on beyond me'". After all, preservation and restoration are the tools that common people can use to impress their thumbprint on the pages of history. Keep up the good work!"

He sure hit the nail on the head when he talked about the instability of those of us who tackle these huge jobs. I promise, I had no idea of the scope of it when I started it. Will is also correct when he talks about the feeling that we are preserving a piece of history to live beyond us. That is one of the things that keep us going on those days when the pipes burst or the electricity is out (again!). And what a smart move he made by working in an architectural salvage shop. I admit, that fills me with envy.  However, I have a different viewpoint from Will when it comes to the following statement he made in his blog:

"I always found it curious that someone who is "restoring" a building would need an interior designer, architect, decorator, consultant, and other members of the parade. Old buildings do not need these people under ideal settings. Their bones and their history are all we need to direct their change. One hundred years ago, someone already did the hard part. It is just up to the "restorer" to dust it off and fix it back up."

If I were restoring a fine Craftsman home, I would probably agree with Will.  But our 100-year-old building required more than just "dusting off and fixing up."  Our vision was not just to restore the building, but to completely repurpose it.  It had been built to serve as a commercial building and through the years has housed the Chain Grocery, a Peachtree Industries sewing factory, doctors' offices, a photographer, the phone company, a dance studio and various other enterprises.  It has actually served as a residence a couple of times, when the owners installed makeshift apartments.  But our vision is quite different.

Although we have served as our own interior designers, decorators and consultants (because we couldn't afford to hire them!), our vision is to turn the upstairs into a high-end "loft style" residence while keeping the downstairs as a commercial space.  When there are no closets or baths or kitchen in the original layout of the building, and you plan to live there, then those things have to be added.  When the "appointments", such as window trim, are strictly utilitarian and very battered, then why not change them?  No, I see nothing wrong with changing what must be updated in order to repurpose, and save, a wonderful old building.

Of course, where there are beautiful things worth saving, such as the pressed tin ceiling in the downstairs gallery area, we went out of our way to preserve them.  In the case of the ceiling, because we needed more light, we added track lighting which we were able to install with only a few eyebolts at the junctures of the tin ceiling plates.  The HVAC duct is visible for the same reason.  We also needed more wall space for pictures and such, so we designed the crazy gallery partitions to divide the space up and add interest without interfering with that tin ceiling.

  

So we're continually making decisions about what can be saved and what must be changed and balancing practicality with preservation.  We hope that we're doing a good job and that whoever is lucky enough to be in this building next will appreciate what we've done.

Kitchen Evolution II

This is the "his" side of the kitchen - counter tops and cabinets are making a huge difference, but there are still a lot of details to be completed.

The cabinets are two-toned, darker on bottom, lighter on top on purpose, so are the countertops, although you can't tell in the photo above.  We still need the exhaust hood completed above the stove - must put a hole through the wall before that can happen.  No paint, no floors, but we're getting closer.

This is the dining area side of the cabinet divider.  Dishes, flatware and linens are stored in these cabinets.

The "hers" side of the kitchen.  Tony is the primary cook in the family.  In our old kitchen, the microwave was above the stove and the sink was just around the corner from the stove.  Tony would always get annoyed when I just wanted to stir up a sauce, make a salad or put something in the microwave while he was busy with some major production meal.  So now I have a mini-kitchen of my own, a place to work that is well out of his way.  And about things that are never really finished - the built-in coffee maker that is shown above has since been moved to the left - neither of us liked it in this particular spot, but it seemed like the best spot at the time it was first installed so that we wouldn't have to saw through a wall stud.

I believe in having his and her kitchens and his and her bathrooms whenever possible - it sure keeps a lot of territorial disputes from ever arising!

Kitchen Evolution I

This is the way the future kitchen area looked when we bought the building.  Just some appliances lined up against the wall.  No counters.  The big white wood-burning stove was used for heat, not cooking.

This is just after we moved in.  There's a new refrigerator and stove, but we're also still cooking on a propane burner sitting in front of the white stove.  Maybe the new stove wasn't hooked up to the gas yet.

Here's another view of our makeshift kitchen with the new stove in place.

Then we graduated to the custom layout for the cabinets - this is the "her" side of the kitchen - two-eye electric burner and a deep "salad sink."