DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Folk art, folk theater calls for folk music. Our region is rich with traditional old-time and bluegrass musicians, but we are also blessed with the young ones who come along and breathe new life into our traditions. I am so thankful for the talents and generosity of Gailanne, Shona, and Julie, the fabulous musicians of The Buck Stops Here. I can’t imagine singing these songs with anyone else; it’s like having my own personal angel band. I am thrilled to introduce them to the Triad Stage family.
This play you’re seeing today is another step on our journey—it many ways a real departure from our previous work. It began with a journey I undertook soon after I was released from the hospital after a stroke gave me a wakeup call to alter my habits and my life. At the time, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to travel again. I was also afraid that I had lost my ease of language. I was determined to hit the road in search of inspiration. I do believe, as a character says in this play, that if we have eyes to see we will see wonders. I’ve always loved to travel and explore. And this short road trip gave me the inspiration for Mother Radiunce, Abundunt Valley and the story of this play. My first inspiration was a small abandoned wooden church in a field off a two lane highway north of Roanoke, Virginia. The church had been abandoned for some time and the doors and windows were barred from the outside. As if, I thought, to keep something inside.
Joseph Rodriguez/News & Record
The second inspiration came in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As I entered the Folk and Self-Taught Art Collection, my lifetime love of the visionary works of outsider artists collided with the idea of boarding something/someone up to keep something inside. Tassie Laidlaw spoke to me clearly in that gallery—“I told you, child. It ain’t no picture. It’s a prophecy.”
Shona Carr, Julie Chiles, Laurelyn Dossett, and Gailanne Amundsen rehearse the new original music for Radiunt Abundunt.
FEB. 21 MAR. 13
Since that moment in the gallery, I’ve taken quite a journey with these characters. From Finster’s Paradise Gardens and Warren’s Shangri-La to Paulsen’s Doll Village to museums in Kentucky, Milwaukee, South Carolina, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, London, Alabama, Baltimore, Mexico and the amazing collection at the Hickory Museum of Art, I’ve travelled to places I didn’t know existed to check out art environments of people whose urge to create was not book learned but woven deep in their DNA. And I suppose that this idea that creativity is not something we learn but something that exists in our blood and our souls is what drove me forward with this play. Like so many of these artists, I am driven to make art. But, unlike them, I fear I lack the ease, the authenticity and the courage to answer my call and share my visions. Why? Is it because I’m somewhat educated, trained and degreed? Is it theory and big words and union memberships? Perhaps it is fear of the critics, the finances, and the judgment of others. How can I as an artist find my way back to the purity of the vision and the call? I worry we are losing authenticity in a world where theater is a commodity shipped in with a New York presumption to the vast and varied cultural centers of this country. I worry that the idea theater can be live streamed instead of lived in front of our eyes threatens the very nature of the audience/artist relationship. I worry that the handmade quality of the arts will become a thing of the past. And so I wrote this play with my artistic partner. And so I made this production with my collaborative team. And so I share it with you—my chosen audience, in this—my artistic home. Welcome to the Valley.
original music by LAURELYN DOSSETT
And while Preston and I have been collaborating for a long time, Radiunt Abundunt feels different to me. There is so much visual storytelling in this play, with the paintings, the projections of images and light, the very set itself. So this time the music is more like a live soundtrack, less narrative and more spiritual subtext. In writing these songs I have had to go down some emotional rabbit holes, emerging safely but not unchanged. I am grateful to have such a partner on the journey.
Radiunt Abundunt is the sixth play that Laurelyn and I have written together and its production this year seems to be an appropriate way to celebrate our 10 years of working together. From our initial meeting when I asked her to explore an Appalachian re-telling of Beowulf we’ve consistently sought to push boundaries, re-define forms and explore the stories of our region in an effort to create handmade work for the audience we love and the artistic home we treasure.
by PRESTON LANE
Preston Lane and I have been in cahoots for nigh onto ten years now, and what a trip it has been. We are both inclined to take the back roads. We are likely to visit a small town just because we like the name of its river. I am particularly bad about seeing something out of the corner of my eye – an abandoned house, a sculpture made from farm machinery, or a particularly stately sycamore tree – and I have to throw on the brakes, pull off the road, and make a U-turn to get a closer look. I feel like we got to do that with Radiunt Abundunt — we got to circle back and look closely at what it means to be ourselves, to make art. We have explored the unpaved paths to see what calls us and at what cost.
GREENSBORO
COMPOSER’S NOTE
Outsider, naïve, self-taught, and visionary are all terms used to describe a segment of artists that live outside of cultural boundaries and whose work is not easily defined. The term “Outsider Art” was first coined by Roger Cardinal in 1972. It was meant to be the English equivalent to Jean Dubuffet’s “Art Brut” meaning rough art. The term encompasses those artists that have no formal training and are not influenced by the institutionalized art world. Their work can express unconventional ideas, fantastic visions, and religious themes. These artists often make their work in “off the grid” environments of their own creation and are not discovered until later in their lives or even after death. The southeastern region of America is particularly rich with these artists and has produced some of the most prolific artists in the country. Their work is
by Bryan Conger & Kelly Erickson
spontaneous, raw, visceral, and most undoubtedly unforgettable.
HOWARD FINSTER
MYRTICE WEST
MARY PROCTOR
Called everything from “the Picasso of folk artists”, to “the Jimmy Swaggart of art”, Howard Finster is considered one of the most famous outsider artists in American history. Born in 1915 in Valley Head, Alabama, Finster only received formal schooling until the 6th grade and began preaching at age 16 after experiencing a vision of his deceased sister who told him he was going to be “a man of visions”. In 1965 Finster decided to retire but did not cut off all ties from preaching. During this time he also operated a bicycle repair shop and gradually transformed the surrounding four acres of swampland into Paradise Gardens. In 1976, while retouching a bicycle paint job, he got a dab of paint on his finger that he claims turned into God and gave him the call to “paint sacred art.” Through the collection of various found objects, Finster went on to create over 50,000 pieces of art. His transition into mainstream media came in 1983 when he appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He went on to collaborate with the Talking Heads and R.E.M on music videos and album covers, and was featured in issues of Esquire and Life magazines. In the last years of his life his work was featured in several exhibitions across the country and people would come from all over to visit Paradise Gardens and the man whose prophetic visions created it. Finster died in 2001 but remains one of the most discussed outsider artists in America.
Myrtice West was born in 1923 in northeast rural Alabama. Her formal education ended in the 8th grade, though she received her GED in 1974. West was a strong southern Christian woman who painted to deal with the real demons in her life, which was a pendulum swinging from joy to tragedy. For years she was unable to have children, experiencing two miscarriages. Then in 1956, after 18 years of marriage, she and her husband had a daughter, Martha Jane. She says, “We were like Sarah and Abraham, having a baby at our age. But God answered my prayers.” In 1977 her daughter moved overseas with her husband and two young children. West says she had a premonition that something bad would happen to her daughter and grandchildren. It was then that West began to paint to ease her concern. She would paint through the night, and during that time she created what was to become her most well-known work, the Revelation Series. It consisted of 14 paintings depicting scenes from the book of Revelation. Her depictions were inspired primarily from the writings of John visioning the apocalypse and God’s ultimate victory over evil. Martha Jane returned home safely in 1980, and soon after divorced her abusive husband. But tragedy struck in 1984 when she was viciously murdered by him. West was devastated, saying “Revelations manifested itself in (my) life.” Though her later years were marked with tragedy, West’s work began to be recognized and she gained incredible notoriety. Throughout it all, Myrtice West maintained true to her religious beliefs and steadfastly believed in the final hope and consolation that would come with God.
WILLIAM THOMAS THOMPSON
Mary Proctor resides in Tallahassee, Florida and is still painting today. She is best known for her doors covered in paint, buttons, cloth and other found objects. They range is size from a small cabinet door to a garage door. But Proctor considers herself to be more of a missionary rather than an artist. “My mission is just to paint it and get it out there. I come straight out with my art. My art talks straight up. My messages are the truth. I’m finding out that people don’t always like the truth.” Mary Proctor was primarily raised by her grandparents and she grew up assisting her grandmother in managing her other siblings. God played a pivotal role in her young life and she felt the call to preach at a young age. Proctor stayed in formal schooling until the 9th grade, but an unexpected pregnancy forced her to end her education early. After relocating to Tallahassee, tragedy struck her life in 1995 when Proctor lost her aunt, uncle and grandmother in a horrific house fire. In the aftermath of this loss Proctor heard her calling from God. It was during a time of fasting that she says, “beautiful light just came over (my) spirit and said to (me), ‘Get a door and paint.’” She did, and has never stopped. For her it is a practice of love and healing. You can still visit Mary at Noah’s Ark Flea Market in Tallahassee to view or buy her work.
William Thomas Thompson’s career and identity defies many of the characterizations of an “outsider” artist. He was born on a dairy farm in South Carolina, and joined the Pentecostal Baptist denomination at the age of 13. In 1957, he opened a five-anddime store in Greenville and soon began wholesaling artificial flowers. His business grew in the States and internationally, and by the 1960s he was a self-made millionaire. However, in the mid‘70s his business took a dramatic downturn and he was forced to declare bankruptcy. It was around this time that Thompson developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a nerve disease that paralyzed him below the knees and partially crippled his hands. In 1989, while receiving treatment in Hawaii, he received his call from God at a church service and suddenly experienced what he calls “an anointing of the Lord,” a revelatory and apocalyptic vision of the world on fire. He immediately bought paint and brushes and got off the plane home with his first painting. He continues to paint and has amassed a large body of work. His primary inspirations continue to be the Book of Revelation and his interpretations of its symbolic messages. Thompson creates his work through what he calls “The Rage”, not of anger but of rapture and fury and belief. The rage he stands in the midst of pushes the brush, the paint, and Thompson with it. He still resides in Greenville, South Carolina with his wife. They live in the old Gassaway Mansion, and Thompson does most of his painting in a large room that was once the mansion’s second floor ballroom.