SUGAR MUD

A surreal solo clown show inspired by the artist's Granny (born 1908) getting picked up by a tornado (in 1920), the writer Jorge Luis Borges (born 1899) and his short story the Circular Ruins (written in 1940), an eternal marriage becoming an eternal divorce (∞), their Mormon temple name [redacted], rock bottoms, and rocks.

The show takes place on a floating clod of dirt that hovers in the eye of the tornado. You—the audience—get sucked up into this dust-bowl domain, ruled by a crone so ancient, so washed up, they are difficult to distinguish from the rock formations that surround them. On view are nylon costumes and textiles (made by the artist), and clothes-line pillars modeled after the “Lot’s Wife” salt rock landmark (fabricated by Aubrielle Hvolboll and friends at Freak Nature Puppets).

Through a vortex of magic surrealism and fringe society wisdom, Sugar Mud explores themes of natural order, oral histories, historical birth orders, family lineage, and generational rock bottoms. The work examines the device of storytelling–how it is used to foist systemic control, and the alchemy that occurs when stories are rewritten–restructuring the imposed order. And because we’re traveling through time in a tornado, much thematic mass gets picked up along the way.