Cocoon

A beauty

Community is the essential part of Cocoon. There are are millions of beautiful art objects purchased everyday in an effort to advertise status or wealth or refined sensibility. The lucky people are the ones who get to create art. This is my gift to the community. Cocoon provides people a way into the creative process. By design, building one requires no experts. There is no need for hierarchies of expertise that usually exist in group efforts — weaving a mat is just as important to the project as hammering a nail or cutting cane.

During the last day people in Greenwood continued to make personal miniature cocoons. After a person made a cocoon I would ask them what they wished it to become. These were hung in the large Cocoon. Here are photographs and people’s wishes from the first of those miniature cocoons.

All photographs by Eric Etheridge

In the evening of Day 11 we tested the lights for the Lighting Ceremony which would take place the following evening. We used solar panels hooked up to a borrowed boat battery to power the 3 LED bulbs. Because the weave on this Cocoon was so open the bulbs were visible through the skin which I didn’t want. Instead I wanted to paint the inside of the Cocoon with light but not disclose the source. Robin Whitfield made shades out of bark and although beautiful as objects this wasn’t a solution. In the end we buried the bulbs and covered them with clear plastic juice bottles.

Talking with Clay Davis who set up the solar panels, procured the boat battery, and rigged the lights.

In the morning of Day 11, the Cocoon was finished, we had two full days before the lighting. This is always a part of the project I enjoy and I purposely build this time into the schedules. In Mexico City the extra time offered us the space to sculpt the skeleton and look again at how the Cocoon sat on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas with Tlatelolco’s deep past surrounding it.

In Greenwood I know that some members of the core team, especially artist Robin Whitfield, had been looking forward to these days of stretching out creatively  with the Cocoon.

Artist, Robin Whitfield, inside the Cocoon with photographer, Hart Henson, in background.

I was interested in spending these last two days of the build continuing my experiments in rounding out the Cocoon form. I wanted to consider again how the Cocoon was placed in the landscape. It was important to me that Greenwood’s historic court house, which was the site of intense Civil Rights activity in the early ’60s, have a presence in Cocoon Greenwood, and I wanted to create some repetition of the Cocoon shape with the shape of the Keesler Bridge in the background.

What we added that day was a gradual slope to the top point of the skeleton that rounded out the Cocoon.

Below are photographs of some of the details of the Cocoon Greenwood skeleton. Their sublime qualities are due in no small part to the creative and aesthetic collaboration of the core group.

All photographs by Eric Etheridge

At the end of the ceremonial mat procession we tied the mats to the Cocoon skeleton.

center Shun Pearson a member of the core group for Cocoon Greenwood

All photographs by Eric Etheridge

My idea for a Ceremonial Mat Procession in Greenwood, MS started a few months before in Mexico City. Ever since building a Cocoon in Mexico City I wanted to have a ceremonial mat procession. The way in which people carried the mats across the Plaza de las Tres Culturas was the same imagery I strived for in my theater. Here everyday materials transcend their purpose and remind us that we are very much alive.

Mexico City mat made of vana de platano

In the Mississippi Delta the land is flat and the manmade levees that crisscross the landscape are both beautiful and life saving. This geometry was tailor made for a ceremonial mat procession. When the skeleton of the Cocoon was finished each person took a mat and marched to the Cocoon where the mats were tied on. This closed one stage of the build and opened another.

It was Shun Pearson who suggested that the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club Drum Corp lead the procession.

All photographs by Eric Etheridge except number 1 by Kate Browne

I wanted drumming for the ceremonial mat procession. Shun Pearson suggested the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club Drum Corp.

Boys and Girls Club Drum Corp in Greenwood, MS

Shun Pearson called Mr. Scott. A few days later, Mr. Scott drove up in a large yellow school bus. The Drum Core began to drum. Wow — fantastic! These children some still in elementary school negotiated the march route with me, calculated how many sets they needed to play, and then marched back onto the bus. I gave them some ice pops and Mr. Scott drove them away.

By the time they returned for their rehearsal at the site, they had had hours of practice at the Boys and Girls Club which has no air conditioning and is mostly an open air pavilion. Their band leader was with them. They are wonderful, professional musicians.

Photograph by Eric Etheridge

And then the skeleton of Cocoon Greenwood was standing on its own, completed. It was — created by local people with local materials in 100 degree heat — an object of beauty.

Tomorrow, Day 10, we would attach the ribs of stripped willow and have a Ceremonial Mat Procession.

All photographs by Eric Etheridge

The Cocoon Skeleton in Greenwood was made of 11 rings of willow wrapped in bark. We had cut the willow trees, stripped the bark, and put in the jigs the previous week. Monday we bent the willow around the jigs, secured the circles with nails, wrapped them with bark, then stapled the bark to the willow.

There was a wonderful beauty to the way we all worked together on the rings and the mats. It was a peacefulness that can only be achieved with this kind of art where the actions to complete the object are so repetitious and simple that it makes each movement of the group gorgeous and whole.

By the end of day we had finished 5 of the 11 rings needed for the Cocoon Skeleton.

… more on Day 7.

All photographs by Eric Etheridge

We were now making both the rings for the skeleton and the mats for the skin. By Day 7 we were close to finishing all the mats needed for the skin.

Below are children from St. John’s day camp. They voted on what they would do each day.

By end of day we had finished 5 of the 11 rings needed for the skeleton.

All photographs by Eric Etheridge

Week 1 in the Cocoon Greenwood Mississippi build was an incredible success. Click on the thumbnails for more photographs and descriptions about each build day.

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By the end of the first week of Cocoon Greenwood we were in great shape and on schedule. The Greenwood community with the core group had put in all the jigs, cut and processed all the bamboo and giant cane we would need, woven over half the mats we would need for the Cocoon skin, and the willow and bark was cut and soaking and ready for the structural circles to be made on Monday.

Photograph by Eric Etheridge