This week I wanted to stop focusing on the negative things we create, instead, I wanted to place emphasis upon our ability to create. I believe our role as creators, our ability to imagine and make a better world, where caring for the young, the old, the sick, the animals, the trees, the birds, the people who are not like us, our ideas of truth, beauty and love must be nurtured at a young age. A fertile imagination, lovingly nurtured, allows for empathy to develop and creates the ability to step into a world that is not our own, to feel what others feel.
This is my favorite week so far.
I came into the site, the statue of Alice in Wonderland, by Jose de Creeft, commissioned by George Delacorte, as a loving tribute to his late wife, not knowing what I was going to create, but I knew only the core of what I wanted to give.
I collaborated with Marceau M. a political ranter, who dresses like the Madhatter, and behaves eccentrically, creating smiling faces and a quizzical looks wherever he goes. By nature, he is the madhatter.
We begin by pretending not to know each other.
I sat on a bench in the corner and attempted to create something, while he steps atop the sculpture along with the children while his dog is running around. Marceau M. feels very strongly about political developments in the Middle East, and desires that we do not stand idly by while warmongers seek to destroy the planet--he takes Alice the wondering Alice who falls into the rabbit hold and uses her heart to find her way out. The children were oblivious to the rant, while the parents were not very pleased to hear this tirade. He asks me, "What are you making, young lady?"
To which, I replied, "Something. I'm making something."
Marceau M. goes on to a tangent about how important it is to think outside the lines, and allow something to happen, instead of getting stuck in a day job doing the same old shit over and over again.
At this point, the parents were very, very displeased.
And Marceau, for fear of having rotten tomatoes thrown at him, steps off the mushroom, runs away, and disappears. He calls me on the phone and says, I don't think this is the right spot! Let's move somewhere else! But his performance gave me an idea of what type of energy must be created.
So my turn.
I walked around the statue. And I reverted to the inner child within. I asked, the children, "does anybody remember the story? There's something missing here! What is this scene missing? But why is there's no Tea, anywhere?"
To which the children replied, "Oh yeah! Tea! They must have Tea! They are supposed to have Tea."
So I began making tea cups.
And we started looking for the little creatures big and small. And I made cups for all of them. And we placed tea cups in appropriate places. Of course, the madhatter must have tea in his hat, and the Chesire cat must have tea in its tail, and Alice fingers are waiting for tea, and the rabbit's pocket watch looks like he needs tea there. And the snail must have a little teacup too.
And the children, were scrambling for the "teacups" arguing about where to place them. And as we walked around the statue, other children would place the "teacups" elsewhere, making the story come to life as "teacups" would randomly appear in unexpected places, and disappear. And we look at each other quizzically asking, "But didn't Alice have a teacup already?" Oh perhaps the Madhatter took it! And sure enough the Madhatter would have two "teacups". And this game kept going for sometime with different children coming and going and playing along. And when some children would leave the statue with "teacups" I would remind them that they must not litter, that they have to promise to recycle the "teacup" when they're tired with it.
I'm not sure if I emphasized recycling aspect enough. But I am certain, that I accomplished what I intended, nurturing the imagination, living out the details of a story that parents read at night. And hopefully, as these children grow older, what they read somewhere, continues to come to life in their hearts.
Afterwards, I strolled Central Park with the Madhatter, Marceau M.--and continued into the rabit hole--had a two hour adventure of insane proportion, somewhere in there even with a mad "Queen" screaming "off with his head".
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