The Making of Skeleton Woman
Both of us were sick for two weeks. Oh, the confrontation. Me, I had a cough from hell that wouldn’t go away. Coughing up yellow phlegm, several nights of interrupted sleep do to coughing fits, pink eye. Tif, she had a bad cold. We were also both feverish for a little spell.
Complete denial leading up to Skeleton Woman. Both of us. And like the story, she wouldn’t stop following us, we couldn’t shake her until we sang some form into her and gave her a voice.
But once underway it was a whirlwind of activity. Crunch time. Tif and I work very differently, but our process was very fluid to create our collaborative mixed media assemblage, a triptych called Skeleton Woman: Life/Death/Life. Tif is very intuitive and me, I’m very conceptual. I have a vision and hold to it like there’s no tomorrow. What I learned from this process is to be flexible with my creative vision. I actually had planned to make the rib cage differently, out of pieces of wood, rather than the pieces of tin that made the final product. What happened is the exhibit space wouldn’t let me attach a hanging overhead panel to the white backdrop panel, which prevented me from suspending my rib cage. Back to the drawing board with less than 24 hours until opening.
With some ingenuity from Tif, I was able to execute my vision in exactly the way I imagined. It was perfect.
The literal journey. We chartered three jeepneys: one to pick up the materials for our piece, another to transport it to the exhibiting venue, and another to store it once we took the exhibit down. The emotional and confrontational journey. I had to face my questions about death cycles in my own relationships. What does it mean when one of us goes through the Life/Death cycles, but only one of us is willing to stick it out and stick around for the new Life cycle? How does one complete when a partner can no longer be part of the cycle and leaves the other to complete alone?
All that stagnant energy and questioning began to circulate and move through me once we started nailing shell to wood, once I started bending tin, once my Skeleton Woman took form. My cough went away and I finally stepped into and claimed being an artist. That, though, is another Life/Death/Life story of its own.
