'Tending Pathways' & Desire Paths of Creation
'Tending Pathways' & Desire Paths of Creation
A Conversation between G & Olivia “Honey” Halo Dwyer
After witnessing Olivia’s installation at 82 Parris in it’s gorgeous orange glow, I spent a couple days deeply texting my friend about the whole thing. You can read my initial reactions here.
Below is a “transcription” (a copy & paste text thread) between Olivia and I over a couple days while she headed back to Philadelphia from Maine and while I traveled to Boston and back again. The edits are minimal and made for the sake of readability, ie: I deleted 10 of 11 of these little guys: :')
Thank you for spending the time yapping, my friend! Here’s to more art and more conversations riddled with parentheticals and exclamation points!
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Welcome home Olivia! How does it feel to be back in Portland for your first installation at 82Parris?
IT IS SO NICE. Feels big and emotional to be surrounded by people I love so very much in my first home—especially as I put down roots in Philly. I feel like one half of my heart is here and the other is there. It's always really raw feeling being back in Maine and seeing the joy in my friends and the ways their lives are progressing, feeling the urge to be close to them while they do. While also chasing my dreams in Philadelphia and loving my life there just as much and knowing I can't leave quite yet.
Something like this at 82Parris is so meaningful to me because it reminds me that sometimes chasing my dreams can lead me back home too and I don't always have to choose one or the other :')
No OK as your friend, that's so sweet and SO TRUE. Art doesn't always take us all over the place but it's so nice when it does. And now we can visit YOU when we visit 82! Well, sorta.
How was traveling with this work? How much silk was used, etc? I can't believe you steamed it all dude.
OUF THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY! A little heart tie between Philly and Maine!!
Traveling was chaotic but not too bad! On the bright side, since it's all silk, it packs down really easily. I literally balled it up as much as I could and shoved it into a suitcase while my partner sat on it. And I had all the other delicate components like the projector etc. suspended in the layers of silk. It was its own packing material!! Certain things I wasn't able to fly with so I did the charcoal drawing in Maine. I was hoping to do it in Philly and maybe drive but decided I wasn't super comfy doing the drive alone.
It's literally like 100 yards of silk lolol. Maybe slightly under! Steaming took 3 days and I only steamed probably like 65% of it (I needed to steam a border of about 56" all the way around and then all of the gathered spire bits in order to pull the fabric together correctly without losing too much width). I wasn't going to initially because I did really like the wrinkled texture. It looked like shifting sand or wind over the water which fed into the idea of it as a landscape BUT there was a section that should have been nearly 5 feet wide that was only like, 1 foot wide with all the wrinkles so I had to turn to the steamer. I did leave a handful of spots unsteamed though for the sake of the texture.
The texture in this piece is everything - and I'm glad you said landscape because that's how I've been referring to it more often than not. Shifting sand, wind over water, mountains and valleys and dunes, all of that. The silk was worth the expense (if you ask me!!) I do think the steaming paid off, especially where it ripples out from the spires and relaxes. It feels organic and right.
Can you tell me a little of how you dreamt up ‘Tending Pathways’? I'm interested primarily in the feelings that birthed it but also concepts, inspirations, all that.
omg I hope my credit card agrees (yikes) but yeah, it felt like there was no option other than organza!! It's a material I use constantly and always as a stand in for strength and vulnerability or variations on that theme—very much something I keep coming back to! With this, I think what I loved about the organza was that you can see through it but it also obscures things just slightly—and since the piece is all about navigating the memories and stories of someone new, I like that it mirrors how memories are never an exact 1 to 1 match of the original experience.
YESS to landscape!! At first I was thinking of it as a cave with stalactites and stalagmites and I wanted to have more coming down from the ceiling in the opposite direction BUT! Alas, that was something not even my credit card could handle. I liked thinking of it as a cave though because it's a space you physically enter.
Okay feelings that birthed it !! It was basically the idea of when you're getting to know someone new, you're getting their memory and feelings around the thing [as they tell it] rather than an objective account of an experience they've had. I like that the organza mirrors that quality a little bit, more so than something fully translucent or opaque would. The idea initially came to me right around when I was moving to Philly! It was my first time as an adult fully removing myself from everything I was familiar with and being somewhere new with entirely new people. The experience of starting from the ground up to find and build my community had me reflecting a lot on how to let people get to know me and how I could best get to know them.
There are so many stories that I feel are so central to who I am and why I am this way, and suddenly no one knew them! I wanted to share these parts of myself, but I also wanted to do that with the right people at the right time in the right way. Similarly, I wanted to get to know the people around me without it feeling like I was prying or pushing someone to let me know them too quickly for their comfort level.
Then also reflecting on the ways people I know and love almost certainly haven't shared all of their stories with me (because I don't know if we can ever fully know every single part of another person) and wondering where the balance is between gentle curiosity vs. accidentally pushing someone away by rushing them into vulnerability and not paying attention to their signals & limitations.
Basically it made me go down a rabbit hole of considering how people meet one another and bring it into friendship or romance or whatever it may be. This landscape was in my head as a visual representation— something we move through, navigate, and don't always have a clear map for.
The organza standing in for both strength and vulnerability is beautiful, I love that that is a theme within itself, ya know? & I love caves dude, I can see the correlation there, but I actually find the peaks to be more approachable and hopeful than how I imagine more stalagmite-shapes would be within the space. Like, I’m imagining the room at 82 if the work was upside down and I think it would feel like a much more precarious and intimidating space if the majority of the fabric was hanging down. As it is now, it feels like something we can live within. I like thinking of the spires as the sort of history we have with the people in our lives - based off of the rabbit hole that I'm currently joining you on lol - and having them climb up towards the sky feels so grand and ambitious, like mountains to climb. That kind of shape is naturally awe-inspiring. Does that make sense?
Yesss I love that!!! I do think it would have made the space feel more precarious to have the peaks hanging over someone navigating the space—I love that it feels more hopeful as it is. Maybe someday I'll translate that into a new iteration of the idea!
I feel like I could comment endlessly on the feelings you pulled out just now about relationships but I'll save that for when it's just the two of us yapping. But quickly, it even makes me think of you and I’s friendship ya know? From Portland and beyond. Like, I look at the primary spire looped so close to the ceiling and I think of family. I look at the tangled ribbons and I think of relationships that sort of crumbled and stayed where they were. It's just beautiful.
The charcoal sketch also feels much more like a map than the install itself (which, I loveeee that you included. I have a soft spot for sketches but the black charcoal v. the ivory silk is a gorgeous juxtaposition). Don't overthink this but seeing the sketch made me think of the Spy Kids movie with Steve Buscemi and his miniature island, do you know what I'm talking about?
Oh, I actually LOVED SPY KIDS
I also was thinking about the smaller bound ribbons on the ground (and I know this is mentioned in the artist statement but just to get into it!!) as locks of hair tied in ribbons. The idea that we store our experiences in our body. Keepsakes like that are a way of remembering the way someone or something used to be. It relates to the moment in the beginning of the video where I tie my own hair up in the same ribbon that the memories are bound in. It's like a connecting feature between myself and the person I'm approaching, but it's also tying my hair up so I don't accidentally spill myself into them.
We can be two distinct people and still meaningfully engage with one another with some cautiousness around codependent tendencies - which conveniently totally tracks back to my initial inspo. I think so many of the people who knew my biggest stories from home knew them from a time when I was much less aware of my tendency to be codependent and I had never had the experience of wanting to share these parts of myself... responsibly?? Like, to be vulnerable and intimate with someone without also becoming enmeshed and losing the distinction of where I end and they begin.
Wow I love your sensitive mind and your busy hands!! Thank you for bringing it back to the ribbons and the sentimental symbolism of that. Our bodies carry us and they take what we give them. Sometimes relationships feel stuck in the mental sphere, or the social expectations and (dare I say) training. At times, building relationships can feel like something we work out in our heads and hearts but the body of course is right there with all of that, nerves and energy and electricity. The idea of the keepsake is both precious and profound, especially when it comes to memory. Many times, I have spilled myself onto others and onto the pavement and onto myself.
TRAINING absolutely accurate!!! Yeah I think there being a physical aspect of engaging with it felt really important because it's so easy to intellectualize feelings and talk in circles but at the end of the day we're left with our actions and how things feel in our bodies.
Ouf I am also a big spiller!! It's so hard because it also IS reasonable to spill sometimes— we're human and spilling happens but I think as long as we're doing the work and not spilling on any ol' person all the time and unraveling tooo far, we're within the realm of acceptability. To a certain extent, I also think it's important to give other people the opportunity to tell you if you're being too much for them, rather than anticipating it and making yourself smaller unprompted. Sometimes we have big feelings! I know I'm prone to lacking balance there, but I think holding ourselves accountable while still being kind and forgiving of ourselves as human and imperfect is important. This can also be something we get into more when we're just gabbin’.
To be continued then! I appreciate that your own boundaries became such a focus for this work. The tension of the ropes in contrast to you gently tying them in the performance component really plays out that tension we're talking about. And yeah, the responsibility we have not only to others but to ourselves!! Ok let's do it, let's get into boundaries, let's get into the performance.
I'm so glad there is a performance aspect to honor the process of building this work as well as these connections. What else went into the performance that the casual observer might miss?
I think depending on when you walk in, [the video] reads more like a documentation of the installation process than it reads like a performance. It just so happens that the action taking place leads to the final landscape the viewer sees. The video isn't exactly evidence of the building process, but rather, the landscape is evidence of the performance and the video is a documentation of that.
If you catch the beginning it reads more as a performance, but the video is long so there's a fairly high chance that viewers will miss that context. I thought about shortening it so it was easier to recognize as performance instead of a process video, buuuut doing that felt counter to the concept. If the point of the performance is to document the patience and effort that goes into building new relationships, cutting it down to be more easily palatable / understandable didn't feel quite right. I decided I would rather it be misunderstood than easily understood. It felt like it would have betrayed the concept SO the video is an hour long.
The video starts with me braiding my hair and washing my feet, drying them (being careful not to step foot on the bare floor after washing them) and then stepping onto the silk. Washing my feet was similar to braiding my hair—the idea of caring for ourselves, of having boundaries and respecting those of others, and the importance of cleaning up your own stuff before getting wrapped up in someone else's. If you ignore your own troubles in favor of engaging with someone else's, I think you're much more likely to project the parts of yourself you're trying to ignore onto that other person. To really meet them, you have to have a clear understanding of what's yours and what's theirs; it helps if you're staying in touch with yourself and your history, limitations, boundaries, needs etc!!
I wish I caught at least the first few minutes of the video to see the small, tender rituals before the set up. Both braiding and feet washing are so symbolic. It is remarkable to imagine you spending days getting a game plan together and trial-running different compositions of the silk AND THEN to take it all down, scrub clean, deeply center and re-enter the task of installing the whole thing.
I think a reason I love experiencial art so much is due to how many logical situations can be solved within the metaphor of the thing you're creating in and of itself - if that makes sense! I'm thinking about creative problem solving and how, when aligned with your intentions and values around what you're creating, you are bound by the the laws that present themselves for the sake of wholeness rather than maybe what would be more palatable. If you had cut down or sped up the video, it absolutely would have been counterintuitive to the message behind the work, if building the art is a direct parallel to building relationships in real time.
I love that. Yes, it was totally a whole pre-process and then re-centering and entering the creation of the space and then re-centering again and unwinding the space to let it breathe sort of - so many steps of doing and undoing!
Between the performance and the living install, what I loved about this project overall was the care and attention paid to each knot and peak. With textile work, I think there is often an allusion to the possible reproduction of pieces - I'm thinking primarily of wearable textiles (which you have worked with) but it's present here as well. When I saw you at the opening, I asked if all the knots and peaks were tied up differently and between giggles you said, "yeah I guess they are!" That's interesting as someone experiencing the work! It feels important to your ethos as well, for this installation as well as your larger body of work.
I LOVE THAT YOU ASKED THAT QUESTION AT THE OPENING. Afterwards I thought about it more and it was actually something I was doing intentionally but I was thinking more about the experience of untying the knots than I was thinking about the knots themselves. A natural side effect of my intention, but one that I overlooked!
As I was going through the install and binding them, for some of them I was winding up and down, over and over themselves—the idea being that later, during the performance when I was untying them, some knots would take MUCH more time and patience. Those ones would be physically harder / more laborious to undo. It was important to me that even though it's a performance, I would really be having to WORK for it. Which ended up being so much more real than I imagined due to the heat wave. It was punishingly hot in the gallery and under the lights (I think there was something a bit psychological there with the orange gels too) and I was there for looong days. The recording is an hour but it actually took me nearly a full day to unravel everything and do the entire performance.
In your artist statement, right at the end, you mention the importance of boundaries. Even the choice to record the performance rather than perform it live was a choice around your boundaries (one that I support, as it means you were able to dedicate careful attention to the work as well as enjoy the opening and hug your friends who came to see the work. It also invited deeper audience exploration of the work, which is what I love about art installations).
I love that perspective that the recording of the performance was a way of honoring my own boundaries!! You are 100% right (although I hadn't thought of it like that) and I'm so glad I did it that way. It was really nice being able to be present with friends and families and strangers at the opening rather than being in performance mode.
What about this work physically represents boundaries to you?
To me, the physical boundaries are softly represented by the unraveled pieces—they're open but you still wouldn't step on or topple them. You wouldn't trample over them. They're represented more firmly by the pieces that remain bound—those speak to the stories someone isn't ready to share with you yet and the respect we show by being present and available but not pushing. Those are the ones we let lie and trust that the person will let us know when they're ready to be unfolded.
OK OK OK see this is the thing about art! (lol art, am I right?) I've been reflecting less on new relationships lately and more on past and present relationships, people I've known for (holy hell) 10-20 years and people I've gotten close to in the last 5 or 6 here in Portland. So in looking at the spires and unraveling threads, I saw a metaphor for like, the depths we kind of carve out for others in our lives and in our hearts, rather than the stories we slowly piece together and the tunnels of ourselves that we invite others into. I mean, this installation works on a lot of levels and there are endless metaphors for the body, for a life. Where the taller spires felt (to me!) like the ways we let each other in, in your intended iteration, they represent boundaries we hold tightly, the parts of ourselves wound up w/ other complicated parts that feel deeply personal and integral and maybe even secret for a lot of our lives, which, ain't the the truth.
I loooove the mirror image read where it's not just new relationships but also ongoing old and present ones! I really love that you found meaning in the negative space—and now I'm going to be thinking a lot about how if a part of the work is in the carved out spaces, what it means to be a body moving through that space!! That almost feels even more intimate and I reaaaally like it.
Also, I love the idea of the boundaries as something wound tightly but also an invitation to be unwound—and the notion that only through knowing someone can you tell if someone is truly inviting you to unwind those parts of themselves or if you want to know it but they may not be ready to share it yet. I think they can totally be both. Sometimes letting someone know the presence of a story IS also an invitation for that person to know more about it & sometimes it's just a heads up, but we aren't ready to dive further into it quite yet. Either way, I think it's so important for the person being told to express curiosity in hearing more when the holder of the story is ready, be it then or later (if there are hopes of a meaningful relationship or friendship in the future!!)
What is the importance of boundaries in your life?
Boundaries in my world are HARD! Certainly something I'm always practicing and trying to be better with! I find that, as a young woman who is a bit goofy irl, people really don't expect me to set boundaries, and when I do they don't particularly like it. I think a lot of women have this experience in friendships, relationships, and professionally. Even though I find boundaries difficult and uncomfortable, I WILL set them.
At the end of the day, I won't do something that feels like a betrayal of self. Not setting boundaries I feel strongly about certainly feels like that. I also think not asserting / clearly communicating boundaries leads to resentment and I don't like feeling resentful towards people—if I'm resentful towards someone over them crossing a boundary that I didn't clearly communicate, it's not really fair for me to be resentful and also isn't something they really did wrong SO it's best for me to communicate how I'm feeling and then, if the boundary still gets blown past, then I get to feel however I feel! I know I showed up and did my best and that matters a lot to me.
I try to practice setting boundaries with incredible kindness and without letting the boundary itself be compromised. If someone responds really poorly to a boundary I've set with kindness, I know that it's an issue on their side and that I've truly TRULY shown up and done the best I could. It's also easier for me to get myself to set boundaries if I know I'm doing it skillfully and with kindness. Being firm is not inherently unkind, and neither is setting boundaries.
I think the world (myself VERY much included!!) has a lot of work to do on how we set and receive boundaries—I feel like sometimes we hold our tongue and try to see how much we can deal with to avoid setting boundaries and then when a boundary DOES inevitably come out, it comes out unskillfully and in kind of a burst. Boundaries are essential. Honestly they're a kindness, to myself and to the other person. I'm setting clear expectations and saving both of us from resentment (when I'm doing a good job of it, that is, which is definitely not all of the time!).
To me, you have always been someone I look towards for examples of setting clear boundaries w/ kindness, regardless of perfection. Who says goofy girls can't set clear lines in the sand?! We have to protect the goof at all costs. And we have to protect our sense of safety and authenticity if we are to forge ahead towards a collaborative world - a worthy cause if you ask me.
Speaking for myself, boundaries are difficult and uncomfortable, but still remain a personal practice. I have definitely chosen the quiet route and regretted it (hello and welcome to my outbursts!) and I have been on the receiving end of the kind of resentment that comes when there's too much left unsaid, when boundaries get washed away in the sand. It stings, it's riddled with tiny regrets but yeah, it's avoidable if we uphold honest and direct communication even when it's difficult and emotional. Maybe especially. Fairness rests on a sort of hinge of whether or not we accurately acknowledge our needs for boundaries and whether or not that is respected. Doing our best in the moment, w/ clarity and w/ kindness, is a universal concern and it's a practice.
PROTECT THE GOOF AT ALL TIMES!!!
Setting boundaries is a part of protecting and continuing our ability to be goofy, rather than something that's somehow contradictory to it. Like no, when I feel safe and am around people who I know love and respect me and who I love and respect back, that is when I am free to be my GOOFIEST self!
Boundaries are so so hard though, and it also sucks to be on the receiving end of people who are struggling to set them and you can feel the resentment setting in. Have definitely been on both sides of it, neither side feels particularly wonderful!!
You touched on this a little bit, with consistently working with silk, but are there other ways this work aligns with your greater body of work? Or differs?
Ohh such a good question!!! I think this work is speaking the same language but in a new application. Silk organza, as a material, has always represented strength and vulnerability for me—some of my favorite artists work in installation and create spaces representing states of mind or memories or emotions. I think that was always what I really wanted to do, but due to just a general lack of time and funding and space, I wasn't able to. So I scaled down to garments—another, smaller way of placing someone inside of a physical representation of feeling. A garment instead of a room, a dress instead of a space etc.
I certainly liked the idea of secret meanings woven into garments that maybe the wearer understands but people they encounter might not (since most people aren't walking around in things I've made while carrying the artist statement lol, despite my best efforts). I like that there's a continued sense of intentionality with inviting people to enter a whole room / space / environment I've built. That there's the conscious entering and exiting of that space and what it means.
I don't know if the same is true of day-to-day garments—for some garments and some occasions I think there is, which is interesting, but I also think there's so much we're working against with the cultural lack of value placed on garments and wearable items. WHICH sometimes I feel like I have the energy to challenge and push up against, but sometimes I want to communicate my ideas and not have to push against people who don't appreciate the language they're being told in. I've literally seen open calls for "functional fine art" specify in the fine print "no garments" like ?? why not?
I was pretty candid about my frustrations towards the art world's treatment of works in fabric on my 82Parris application for this exhibition. I am very grateful that they were receptive to it and excited about the project & gave me a chance no one else has before!! They've had a few other artists and solo exhibitions that have featured fabric and now have an open call up for a show of craft artists which I think is SO EXCITING.
YES crafts are really getting elevated in the art world - which I know we both have a lot of feelings around because we have talked about it friend to friend. I mean, the first time we really met was when you put on that fashion show down in Boston and dressed me in black. So fun, would do again. I find it interesting that open calls would specifically refuse garments. Will fashion ever truly be taken seriously by the art world? Is wearable art reserved for the wealthy? Does it bring up too many hot-button feelings of capitalism and overproduction? These are all rhetorical but I think these questions enter the room when clothing is taken off the rack, off the body, and displayed as an art piece despite it starting out as a functional, socially necessary craft since Adam and Eve got embarrassed about their pubes.
Adam and Eve getting embarrassed about their pubes is so real and ~did~ just make me chortle out loud to myself on the couch!
Anyway! I'm intrigued by the secret meanings woven into garments and the power and metaphor we give to items of clothing as well as art objects. "A garment instead of a room, a dress instead of a space," that's beautiful. We do sort of inhabit new energies in both what we wear and where we go. I admire you for speaking up for your work, your vision, and it's place outside of your studio and into the world - art world and beyond.
And speaking of beyond, before this interview gets out of control, what surprised you about this whole experience - from applying all the way to the opening?
Honestly I was so surprised to get the acceptance email!! You just get used to rejections and sort of desensitized to them (which is a good thing I think, rejection is an important part of putting yourself out there!!) BUT definitely a pleasant surprise!!!
I think I was also surprised by myself?! Pleasantly?! I used to not meet deadlines at all and then I only started meeting them because I was afraid of disappointing others. This was one of the first times I had the chance to show up for myself and was managing multiple big long term projects and still managed to finish early without sacrificing quality or effort for ?! all of the deadlines?! I think my determination and skills to show up for myself have evolved and grown so much over the last few years. It means a lot to have this opportunity to put that to the test!
How do you feel your work was received?
I think it was received well—I hope it was received well!!! To be honest the night was such a whirlwind and I was slingshotting from one 3-6 minute conversation to the next for 3 hours straight at the opening and truly I don't remember most of what was said. I know one person walked in and visibly relaxed & sighed and was like, “Wow, it's like taking a deep breath" which meant so much to me.
Interestingly, that has been a theme in my work since I was in high school. I remember being in a film class in high school and all the other films were like, horror or shooters and were really well made and skillful (like, a lot more skillfully made than mine tbh lol). My film was last and was just this shitty little music video I'd made, but when it started I FELT the audience sigh in relief and sink into their chairs a little & relax slightly.
Dude I have a video I took of the room and in it, you're talking to someone about it and just giggling and being so earnest. So glad you leaned into relief and an ethereal, honest nature in your work - it shows up in all that you do.
How do you feel now that it's up and on display until the end of the month?
I feel SO GOOD that it's up!!! It feels weird to have it be up in another city and to have to leave it though. I feel like my heart is still there a bit. I also feel like a month is both so much and so little time. The install and fabrication was a tornado of activity so it's funny that now it sits in stillness for a few weeks before I come back to take it down. I think that's probably how every artist feels when they have their first work up for display like that, like, “Oh right, it can't last forever!” My gears are turning, thinking of ways I can bring stillness in this form to other spaces, or dream up entirely new environments I can build someday.
It can't last forever! Nothing can! It might be interesting to see how the silk looks coming down compared to it going up, I wonder what kind of dirt and dust will collect lol you'll have to call me when you come home to take it down.
YES PLS! Omg okay I wanted to have some of the peaks be unsupported by the fishing line to see if they would fall or soften overtime, but I didn't have the chance to test it properly so I decided to support them all. But I DO love the idea of the landscape changing over time, with or without my presence, because people are always growing and changing and shifting with or without ya! Even during the opening I was finding dust bunnies that were somehow new. I'm sure there will be more!!
And until then, Maine gets to have a little piece of ya for a while!
HAPPY TO HAVE A LIL SLICE OF MY HEART IN MAINE FOR A FEW WEEKS!
‘Tending Pathways’ can be experienced at 82Parris in Maine until August 23rd, 2024.
If you would like to see more of Olivia’s work and support her, check out her website.