BREAD & PUPPET Printshop Internship: Week 1
(June 27-July 3, 2012) My plane from Chicago lands in Boston Logan Airport, and I hurriedly hop on a shuttle to catch a bus to Hanover, NH, to meet a friend & long-time Bread & Puppet Artist, Clare Dolan. Her friend, Hou Qing-Hui, a performance artist from China, is interning for the theatre this summer, and has just arrived from Shanghai. While walking through the Dartmouth College town of Hanover looking for a good place to eat, we happen upon this poster on a shop window, and it stops me on my tracks — I feel like such a tourist pulling out a camera, but — I know a friend who makes a similar poster, so after taking a quick look behind my shoulders, I take a photo and email it to him —
“Possible… but can they really be one year older than Hatch Show Print in Nashville??? “
When I arrived at the theater house, it was rainy and dark, and as I dried off in the bathroom, I took a picture of my tired self in the mirror — to better remind myself of — well, i don’t know really… perhaps I couldn’t pinch myself enough that I am here, back in Vermont for the summer after so many years… and that I will be staying in a nice little room above the kitchen. I turned in for the night and in the morning, I woke up early to walk in the field.
First day of work called for no regular olde-style drip coffeemaker, and Lila Winstead, the Printshop Manager, knows this well. She treated me and Michelle Buckley, the other Printshop Intern, to fresh cups of espresso. That tiny thing can really pack a punch! Dy-na-mite!
One evening on the first week, Hou and I went to Clare’s house for dinner, and we visited her Museum of Everyday Life‘s current exhibit on Safety Pins!
Who knew! what a storied life this simple object has lived since ancient Greeks fought with Reason in their manly robes! Could they have written with the same fibula they fastened their cloaks with? Could they…
Well, Reader, you must find out for yourself! I can only report that I was especially charmed by this interactive exhibit composed of a mimeographed Sid Vicious atop a rusty drum, a bowl of safety pins, and band-aids.
Bread & Puppet Press
Tribune Showprint
Hatch Show Print
Museum of Everyday Life
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