AHA!

A couple of weeks ago I took part in the AHA festival. AHA stands for After Hours Alliance, which is a group of young people who get together to organize things. At least that's what I think it is. I responded to an open call sent to me by a friend, asking for proposals, so, figuring it would be a good way to meet and greet, I proposed a booth installation/performance.

I bought a couple of hardcover copies of Emily Dickinson's letters, then deconstructed them, chose some favorite snippets from her poems, and wrote this text in lemon juice on the pages. I did a bunch of these beforehand, and at the fair I ironed pages to bring the lemon juice text to the surface as a burn.

I was a little concerned that it would seem underwhelming when I started to see what the other artists were doing. But it ended up being very well-received. The fair was great fun- music, performance, food, art- and a very youthful vibe. I wondered where all these young people hang out the rest of the time. 

I met a lot of poets and writers, publishers, and other people who are interested in the written word. I showed some little people how the lemon juice "invisible writing" works. 

Here's a video that was produced by Andrew Kastner for santafe.com- I'm about two minutes in. 

2011 AHA Progressive Arts & Music Festival Overview from SantaFe.com on Vimeo.