Soft warm light
and dolls
I went to visit Greer and friends in Pittsburg for my 30th. I stayed in The Priory Hotel built in 1888. This priory once hosted Benedictine clerics that gathered and lived communally. The bright narrow halls were adorned with building schematics, painted portraits, and dusty stuffed chairs. One hall was dotted with compact writing desks. A suspicious, reliable elevator took me to the third floor. The center courtyard, dolled up with string lights and faux candles, was tucked between looming halves: on one side were the hotel windows, and on the other the former church, St. Marys. My brother texted and asked if I could hear chanting at night. Unfortunately, thankfully, I could not.
During the day, I ventured to the Warhol Museum and The Mattress Factory, along with its annexes. (Greer and Warhol ran in the same New York City circles, as most queer artists of the time did. She notably said he was the dullest person she ever met.) I enjoyed seeing Warhol’s collaborative work with Haring and Basquiat. As a papier-mâché fanatic, I loved seeing Haring’s papier-mâché elephant standing at the center of one exhibition.
After, I stumbled through piercingly bright alleys to find the Factory. I came upon one of the annexes first. The first floor housed gigantic Raggedy Ann legs emerging from the wall, dolls, cartoon vinyl murals, and toys were scattered or piled across a red and pink installation. It was Deep, Deep Woods - the work of Catalina Schliebener Muñoz. (Yes, I loved it. I have a Raggedy Ann doll and a similar doll with blonde hair that came from my Nana.)
The center sun of this trip was Greer’s It's All About ME, Not You. The installation first appears to be the exterior of a house. It has white siding, red wooden tulips planted along the base, and patio furniture with scattered faux fall leaves. Through the windows and the glass door, the installation can be seen.
I peered in, excited from the anticipation, and upon first glance, the feeling tangled with fear. I imagined standing at the center of this room, surrounded by her dolls. I walked to the front door and without thinking tried to open it.
The door handle reminded me of the door to my Grandparent’s back porch, fully encased in glass. The handle was black with a big button to press as it was gripped to release the latch. This one was similar but white.
The door didn’t open - as it shouldn’t have - and another mixture of emotion welled: disappointment and relief. My proximity to her dolls felt too far and too close. I kept imagining them shifting, blinking, or adjusting for comfort.
This memory of imagining them move superimposes the memory of them still. To process an image and imagine it at the same time alters perception in the present, and now, the memory. They were charged with sparkling, electric, haunting potential. Dolls can never die.
This experience of projection surfaced suddenly and quickly on another floor of the Mattress Factory. James Turrell, known for his precise manipulation of light, has three installations at the Factory. Catso, Red, Danaë, and Pleiades.
Turrell writes,
“Pleiades is a Dark Piece where the realm of night vision touches the realm of eyes-closed vision, where the space generated is substantially different than the physical confines and is not dependent upon it, where the seeing that comes from “out there” merges with the seeing that comes from “in here,” where the seeing develops over and through dark adaptation but continues beyond it.” [bolded text from me]
That merge and what fear can be produced from staring into near-total darkness lingers. There are places where I feel comfort in the dark, tracing the shadows of familiar objects. I thought of the mirror in my bedroom at night. Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to see something shift within it.
Viewers are asked to spend 15 minutes in Pleiades, but I could hardly walk up the ramp to access it. The ramp is dark too, lined with two handrails to help navigate. It opens to a small rectangular space with short walls. Two black, plastic, and metal chairs await. The space is small. All around it is a void. The viewer’s eyes are meant to adjust in the 15 minutes to reveal what light there is. I squinted and blinked, hardly telling the difference between them being open or closed, struggling with the reality that my eyes had almost nothing to adjust to.
I imagined someone watching me or hiding nearby. I didn’t know if the space beyond the balcony-height wall dropped or plateaued. I could feel a soft breeze. Was I high in the air? Or on the ground? I tried to imagine the building's architecture. My breath was quick - thinking of the possible depth of the emptiness. I felt watched.
I stumbled down the ramp. I used my phone screen to light the path, thinking the flashlight would be too offensive. Even the landing from the ramp was dark and I kept imagining silent watchers in every corner. Where were the corners?
I tried to relax and went back.
This time, I sat, barely perched on one edge of the chair. I was alone, not only in the room but on the entire floor. I tried to look out again. I tried to hush the anxious fears of monsters in the dark, breathing intentionally.
I saw geometry warp across the ceiling.
Barely perceivable soft warm light scattered across a domed ceiling - much like when a car passes the window at night and projects a grid from the pane. This wasn’t a grid, it was mostly triangular forms stretched at an angle across the dome.
A memory flashed: I am standing in front of a stained glass window. I’m at the Church I went to every summer with my Grandparents. At night it glowed and I watched as lights passed by and through it. The pane was a diamond pattern. The window varied in jewel-toned abstract dyes.
The soft light projected across the ceiling and faded. I strained to hold it still.
I don’t know if that’s what was there or what my mind saw: a soft warm light, a stained glass window absent of color.
From the Priory to Pleiades, the trip has me reflecting on how we impact objects, rooms, and places, what they may hold, and what we can sense from them. The building once inhabited by monks surely holds memory, as do the delicately built dolls by Greer. A space imitating void is charged, almost overwhelmingly so, with the possibility that I brought to it.
But what I saw, and the deep memory that resurfaced, surprised me. Maybe the religious site I slept in at night influenced my vision. Maybe it was my Nana’s Raggedy Ann doll. Maybe it was the door handle that felt familiar in my grasp. Maybe it was something else entirely.
A film photograph I took in July 2011 of the window from the Church. Next to it is an image from Hubble: “This ghostly apparition is actually an interstellar cloud caught in the process of destruction by strong radiation from a nearby hot star. This haunting picture, snapped by the Hubble telescope, shows a cloud illuminated by light from the bright star Merope. Located in the Pleiades star cluster, the cloud is called IC 349 or Barnard's Merope Nebula.”
Credits
In the first collage:
Work by Isla Hansen: How to Get to Make Believe
Warhol Flowers
A selfie in Randyland
Birthday cake w family from Martin’s
Mr. Rogers Castle, masks, pickle sizer, and 1920s skeleton puppet from the Heinz History Center
From my Instagram post:
Warhol Bridge and The Priory Hotel Courtyard
Haring’s Elephant and Repetitive Vision by Yayoi Kusama
Greer’s installation
Randyland
The Priory and Catso, Red
Mr. Rogers and the kitchen diorama at the Heinz History Center