The Eye of the Storm Has the Warmest Temperature (2014 – )
Otowi Bridges, Old and New
A future multimedia performance production.
This project emerges from a long-time fascination with the story of Edith Warner and her teahouse at the rail station at Otowi Bridge before, during and after the Manhattan Project.
From May 26-June 23, I will be in residence at the Women’s International Study Center, in Santa Fe, New Mexico doing research and development for this project in the form of writings, drawings and visual imagery. Production design illustrations and performance production plans will be published as a book by Weil Books, a small art press based in New York.
The subject offers contrasts in and around Edith Warner’s life, the existing cultural blends and contradictions, the effect of the seasons and the change from dark to light in her life as she moved to tentatively and then permanently into the New Mexico landscape and fostered courage in the face of obstacles through sheer will, intelligent understanding, and faith. And, most importantly, the impact her presence had as a pivotal influence between the worlds she inhabited. The emergence of the Manhattan Project.
As one of five artists chosen to participate in SARC (Scientists/Artists Research Collaborations), a collaborative exploration with Los Alamos National Research Laboratory and the Santa Fe Institute, I was afforded two visits to New Mexico in 2012, and so I know how invaluable it would be to be immersed in the area of which I am writing . It was that experience that, upon my return to New York, brought me back to Peggy Pond Church’s writings, and to the beginnings of this new project.