Lucy, the Same Night A Supporting Paper Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Art University of Minnesota By Simcha Smith In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Fine Arts Degree in Art November 26, 2019 Committee: Diane Willow, Chair Christina Schmid Leslie Morris 1. 2. Lucy, the Same Night In the center of the empty dream gallery lies a bed. The bed has a wooden frame, white bedding, and a queen size mattress. On the right side of the bed, a gray pillar of unfired clay stretches the length of the bed and slouches beyond its foot. This is titled “Lucy, the Same Night”. 3. 4. Book 1 5. 6. 1. 7. //The dream can be divided by material into objects [space, bed, pillar, title], which further divide into components {the room, the walls/lack of walls, the occupants/lack of occupants, the bed}, {sheets, mattress, pillows, frame, headboard}, {clay body}, {Lucy, the, Same, Night}. The bed can be further reduced into materials (wood, fabric, fill, nails, glue). //White is the initial state. Each time I lie (alone or with another) on my sheets, I degrade and accelerate the degradation of the sheets’ whiteness. The initial white is the result of bleaching and processing. Each time I sleep, I test the sheets’ oil holding capacity. Washing them resets the test but does not rewhiten the sheets. I could (but do not) bleach the sheets and force them white at the cost of the fibers’ integrity. This would not return the white- ness. My (and others’) oils yellow the sheets and the sheets themselves perform yellowing. Though not their intended goal, it is what the sheets were bought and made to do. //I surround myself with and feel incapable of movement in this whiteness. The white 8. bed asks me to lie perfectly still. It asks me to wash my hair before sleeping in it and to not turn my oily cheeks onto it. And yet, I receive satisfaction from testing the white- ness’s absorption. At a certain saturation point the sheets must become somewhat stain-proof, or, unable to change. The bed loses its ability to leech liquids and starts to test my body’s absorption. The abject happens in the unwashed sheets when I’m asked to absorb my own fluids again. //To protect wood (which is dried after its death) from water, it must be coated in oil. Water, which once kept the wood, will now warp it. //As an object, the bed functions as a grave- yard for its construction materials. Sheets are the end of the cotton’s cycle. The frame marks the end of the tree’s life. While it remains as bed, nothing returns into its life/death cycle. Each of these once-living organisms now serve human ends: repro- duction, rest, horizontal orienting. //A bed is the arrangement of set materials made for living body/ies to facilitate lying. When made for living bodies (plural) to sit/ 9. Pugmill I load a handful of clay into the extruder. I undo a latch, move a plate, and I dream of falling into the mill. As the plate behind me closes, I see my body become compacted through pressure and force into one long, continuous cylinder. All of the air between parts gets pumped from my body and the most condensed ver- sion of me comes out the metal end of the tube into a singular form. I wonder how much me there would be at the end. Once the air and excess liquid gets pushed from the meaty core, all that connective material inside me becomes unnecessary. Elbow and head have a direct link. Ears and feet are adjacent. Any body part could be easily accessed through this newly simplified network. My heart needn’t work as hard. My nerves don’t have to branch to send signals. Slowly my communicative struc- tures begin dying off from redundancies. Everything is touching everything here in a perfect cylinder. As I’m loading new handfuls of clay, this vision of unity gets disrupted. Wet clay sticks to the sides of the mill’s metal body and forces out a rough almost-but-not-quite cylinder. A cylinder on average, maybe, but certainly not a shape, not a form. The clay shears against itself, building up layers and pushing out a tree bark body. Instead of receiving a compact, complete tube of me, I have to grapple with this incomplete product. It isn’t whole. There are still bits of clay self clinging to the metal, dislocated from my central bulk. And those bits pull more and more body to them. As I lift the valve to insert another mound of clay, I fight against the suction until it gives all at once and air that is 10. not clay spills in. 11. Abel And she continuously bore his brother Abel and Abel was a shepherd of flocks and Cain was a tiller of the soil. And she continued to bear his brother, Abel, and Abel was a shepherd of flocks and Cain and was a tiller of soil. Aand she continually boar, his brother, his brother Abel and who was a shepherd of flocks and Cain and soil. Aand she contuined to bear his brother Abel And she contuined to bore his brother Abel His Brother Abel And she continued to bear his brother Abel and Abel was a shepherd of flocks and Cain was a tiller of soil And she continued to bear and bear his brother Abel was a shepherd of flocks and Cain was a tiller of soil Now it came to pass at the end of days of fruit that Cain had brought of the soil and as an offering to the Lord. Now it came to pass the end of days that Cain brought, of the fruit of the soil, of an offering to the Lord. Cain the tiller of soil in an offering to the Lord Cain and now it came to pass and at the end of the days that Cain brought of the fruit of the soil of the offering to the Lord Now it came to pass Now it came to pass that the lord of the end of the days, that Cain brought of the fruit of the soil and an offering to the Lord that it came to the end of the days that Cain brought of the fruit of the soil that came as an offering to the Lord. And Abel he too brought of the firstborn of his flocks and of their fattest, and the Lord turned to Abel and to his offering. And Abel brought to the firstborn of his flocks of the fattest, and to the Lord and turning to Abel he said of his offering. Now it came to pass that Abel, the firstborn of the flocks came unto the Lord with his offering. And it came to pass that Abel of the firstborn of his flock and of the 12. fattest, came unto the Lord and he turned to Abel on his firstborn. And it came to pass that Abel, the firstborn of the flock, the fattest of the flock, came unto the Lord and the Lord turned unto Abel and turned unto his offering. And and it came to pass that Abel, and he brought of the firstborn sheep, of the firstborn fo the fattest flocks, the Lord turned to Abel and the Lord turned to his offering an d the lord. But to Cain and to his offering He did not turn, and it annoyed Cain exceedingly, and his countenance fell. To Cain and to offering He did not turn, it annoyed Cain and it annoyed his countenance and he fell. But to Cain and to his offering He did not turn unto his Cain and offering and it annoyed his countenance and he fell and he turned unto his count unto his count unto his count and Cain And Cain turned unto his count and he made his offering unto him. He did not turn And Cain did not turn. The Lord did not turn unto Cain and he did not count. And he did not count unto Cain or his offering. And the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you an- noyed, and why has your countenance fallen? And to the Lord said Cain “Why are you an- noyed and why has your count fallen?” And the Lord and Cain said “Why are you so annoyed and why has your count fallen?” “Why are you so annoyed and why has your count fallen” The Lord unto Cain said “Why has your count fallen, why are you annoyed?” And the Lord said to the Cain “Why are you an- noyed. Why has your count until now fallen” “Why has the count that you’ve kept until now fallen?” “Why has the count fallen” Is it not so that if you improve, it will be forgiven you? If you do not improve, however, at the entrance, sin is ly- ing, and to you is its longing, but you can rule over it.” 13. Is it not so that you improve, so that you will be forgot- ten? If you do not improve, however at the entrance of sin is lying, and to you is its longing but you can rule over it.” It is not so that you improve, it is so that you will be for- gotten? If you do not improve, the entrance of sin is at the lying, and it is to you that longing can rule over it.” It is not so that you improve, but so that you will be forgotten.