Secret Compass

It dawned on my that the reconstructed bowsprit we found a couple days ago was actually a secret compass. Some of today's cairns have projections that also point due north. Are these merely random piles, or a cosmic computer?

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Twisty Things

Salient Feature #6: Twisty things. When these accumulations of twisted wire appear, they last longer than the other media the Primitive uses, although they soon migrate into the garbage from whence they came. Tom Zummer pointed out to me that the work of the Woonasquatucket Primitive has affinities with that of the Philadelphia Wireman, and these wires are perhaps the Primitive's homage to this classic anonymous urban folk artist. But the Wireman's wires are more easily appreciated outside of their original context; as web sites show, they can be easily, and depressingly, placed beneath the vitrine. As I have been emphasizing about the work of the Primitive, however, these are not as much art objects, but interventions and addresses: a way to connect to the environment and a call out to others. It's a clasp and a patois. A twist and a shout.

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Under Erasure

Out of all the crap the rain dredged up, the Primitive surprised me today some mini-structures made mostly from lost WaterFire logs. The city keeps this wood hidden in the alcoves that line the watery underbelly of the city. The recent rain set them free from their cords, so that you could find flotillas of cut wood in the dead ends of the Woonasquatucket. Probably there are a few that have beat it out to the sea. Nevertheless, the structures the Primitive composed of them were very simple and some were even precarious, so I made sure to rush back with my camera in case the wind blew some over before I got there.
But it was not the wind that ended up the problem. By the time I got back, the lunch bourgeoisie had erased all signs of the Primitive. I brought Roxy along and it was truly a Snuffleupagus moment. Now, imagine the scene (or look at the last entry if your imagination is strained): there is literally a carpet of garbage on the river walk that still hasn't been cleaned up since the rains, and overflowing garbage cans as per usual. Yet, these self-appointed custodians of the city choose to remove something significant and whimsical. What is wrong with you people?
So I do what any self-respecting documentarian would do. I find the remnants of the most interesting sculpture, thrown here and there in the bushes, and reconstruct it as best as I can from memory.

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Tabula Rasa

Or horror vacui? The recent wind and rain has washed away most remaining signs of the Primitive, and replaced them with a mulch of garbage and organic matter that carpets the whole riverwalk. The most prevalent items washed up are multitudinous bits of styrofoam and empty containers of 10W-30. At points, it is arranged in such neat formation, that it almost looks like intentional landscaping.

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Hysterical Shrines

Salient Feature #5: Shrine accumulations. There is a scene in Silence of the Lambs where, after Hannibal Lecter escapes from the cage in which he was painting Florentine landscapes and listening to Glenn Gould, we see his handiwork: a Statehouse guard flayed and crucified, suspended beatifically, expertly lit. To me, it seems a moment not only in character with Hannibal's "classiness," but also an instance of directorial hysteria (who did the lighting, anyway?), where Jonathan Demme is arguing with all his resources that, even though he is playing with the tropes of a B-genre, that this is an A-film.
To what end do I proffer this example?
The Primitive is at times caught up in the same brand of hysteria. Not content on forging a barely visible bind between his/her hand and the environment, the shrine alerts viewers that, indeed, this is art. These shrines originally alerted me to the piece's more subtle interventions and gave me a sense of the overall grammar of the Primitive.
Why the butterflies? My own hysterical Web 2.0 moment, perhaps.

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Doo-Dad

One could have easily overlooked today's installment of the Primitive. As I said earlier, evidence of his/her handiwork has been scarce. In fact, I didn't even go out with my camera today. Although I ran back home in order to come back and take a picture of this doo-dad, strewn haphazardly, before some street sweeper or happy resurrectionist decided to return the sidewalk to its pristine state. Notice how this sculpture masquerades as garbage--insouciant and misplaced, almost invisible.

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Chance, Necessity

"Somewhere in the city . . . there are four or five still-unknown objects that belong together. Once together they'll make a work of art. That's Cornell's premise, his metaphysics, and his religion, which I wish to understand.
He sets out from his home on Utopia Parkway without knowing what he is looking for or what he will find. Today it could be something as ordinary and interesting as an old thimble. Years may pass before it has company. In the meantime, Cornell walks and looks. The city has an infinite number of interesting objects in an infinite number of unlikely places."
--Charles Simic, Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell

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shy crystal

The Primitive has not been as prolific as expected, although this lone crystal turned up. Perhaps the Primitive is getting shy, but this is his/her hand.

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