The Woodcutter
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Site specific performance - live action & recorded audio
An action essay. Musing on the imaginative bounds of female domesticity and the freedom of fictional creation.
Chapter 1
It could sometimes be a lonely life.
She was used to it, the slow rhythm of the days. When the quiet of the house became too much, she slid back the bolt on the big wooden door and went outside to the woodpile. Although the trees were covered in leaves and everywhere around her was bright, new green, a wet film lay over the fields and it was cold enough to pull a woollen hat over her ears. As she leaned under the improvised roof of the woodshed to choose a log, water dripped down her bare neck.
After a few minutes she was warm, and the feeling of loneliness that had sat upon her since she awoke had lifted.
Just one more log. She lined up the axe and lifted it high. It landed with a dull thud.
She lifted it again and again, hearing the sound bounce off the trees, alarming a small yellow bird that was delivering caterpillars to its chicks. Now, the sound changed. A sharp splintering. Almost there. The big log flew apart.
This job used to be her husband's. Since he was gone she had no choice but to keep the woodpile in order. She could see him now, his long legs braced, a frown of concentration as he effortlessly swung the long axe through the air. He had always done that kind of work. Fixing, cutting, carrying. He built the house with his own hands. Raising every pillar, fixing every post. She had been there too – to carry the planks, cut, drill and screw. They were a team.
As she picked up the smaller, sharper axe, she glanced up at the chimney. The fire was drawing, but there was no wind this morning, and the smoke drifted down around her, softening the edges of the house in a dreamlike haze. But this was not a dream. It had been five years since he left. She had been alone all this time.
I stop typing. Who exactly is this woman?
A woman chops logs. We watch the axe swing, the logs split. We listen to her voice reading a piece of writing in progress, and reflecting on the compromises of daily family life, desires for self-sufficiency and the possibilities of reinvention, through fiction. She muses on the phenomenon of queer bushlore influencers, with their axes and archery. Does she desire them, or does she want to become them? Autobiography and fiction merge in this physical musing on autonomy, physicality and desire.
The Woodcutter was created on residency at Annatopia, the boshut of famed eco-feminist pioneer, Sonja Prins. It was performed on location at AnnAtopiA [NL].
Thank you to Marieke van Rooy for the invitation and collaboration.
An action essay. Musing on the imaginative bounds of female domesticity and the freedom of fictional creation.
Chapter 1
It could sometimes be a lonely life.
She was used to it, the slow rhythm of the days. When the quiet of the house became too much, she slid back the bolt on the big wooden door and went outside to the woodpile. Although the trees were covered in leaves and everywhere around her was bright, new green, a wet film lay over the fields and it was cold enough to pull a woollen hat over her ears. As she leaned under the improvised roof of the woodshed to choose a log, water dripped down her bare neck.
After a few minutes she was warm, and the feeling of loneliness that had sat upon her since she awoke had lifted.
Just one more log. She lined up the axe and lifted it high. It landed with a dull thud.
She lifted it again and again, hearing the sound bounce off the trees, alarming a small yellow bird that was delivering caterpillars to its chicks. Now, the sound changed. A sharp splintering. Almost there. The big log flew apart.
This job used to be her husband's. Since he was gone she had no choice but to keep the woodpile in order. She could see him now, his long legs braced, a frown of concentration as he effortlessly swung the long axe through the air. He had always done that kind of work. Fixing, cutting, carrying. He built the house with his own hands. Raising every pillar, fixing every post. She had been there too – to carry the planks, cut, drill and screw. They were a team.
As she picked up the smaller, sharper axe, she glanced up at the chimney. The fire was drawing, but there was no wind this morning, and the smoke drifted down around her, softening the edges of the house in a dreamlike haze. But this was not a dream. It had been five years since he left. She had been alone all this time.
I stop typing. Who exactly is this woman?
A woman chops logs. We watch the axe swing, the logs split. We listen to her voice reading a piece of writing in progress, and reflecting on the compromises of daily family life, desires for self-sufficiency and the possibilities of reinvention, through fiction. She muses on the phenomenon of queer bushlore influencers, with their axes and archery. Does she desire them, or does she want to become them? Autobiography and fiction merge in this physical musing on autonomy, physicality and desire.
The Woodcutter was created on residency at Annatopia, the boshut of famed eco-feminist pioneer, Sonja Prins. It was performed on location at AnnAtopiA [NL].
Thank you to Marieke van Rooy for the invitation and collaboration.