LC: This is the first time that your work is being shown at the Wassaic Project. How did you learn about the Wassaic Project? How do you think that the unusual interiors of the Mill building have affected your concept of this current installation?

BP: An artist friend familiar with the Wassaic Project suggested I apply. And, I’m delighted I did. This has been an amazing experience, and everyone involved has been incredibly supportive and creative.

My studio at home is in an old wooden apple barn so it’s a great opportunity to present this installation in a space so similar to where it was first created.  I find that the rustic feel of these spaces creates added texture that helps me blur reality when sculpting an environment layered with memory and dreams. The rough sawn floors and ceilings juxtaposed against an ephemeral experience enhance the transformation of everyday objects in a magical and unexpected way.

Originally, RAINDROP was a rectangular “diorama” or “stage set” that you walked along the outer edge of in order to experience. Here at the Wassaic Project, I was given an L-shaped area. I used this additional space to explore ways to take the installation to the next level by making it truly immersive. I was now inspired to play with objects and sculptural themes in terms of both unexpected changes in scale, as well as creating the illusion of interior/exterior settings. To do this I turned the additional space into an entryway that opens onto a section of a normal sized child’s bedroom meant to reflect where the poem was written. Video projections on a child’s notebook sitting on a nightstand spill the letters of Andre’s poem onto the bed and floor. As you move further into the installation it opens up onto an outdoor scene with multiple projections layered onto small dollhouses juxtaposed with life-size tree branches. The result is that the piece is no longer about watching. It is about inhabiting. We are inside. We are outside.

LC: You have an impressively accomplished and varied career in the arts that includes teaching at the university level, installation work, video projection mapping, virtual reality productions, and award-winning documentary film making.  What ties together the many aspects of your practice?

BP: I have always been drawn to non-traditional tools in search of that magical space where art and tech meet. To get there I’ve become comfortable with artistic risk, reinvention and thinking across disciplines. I feel like all of my work has been building toward this type of immersive, media-hybrid storytelling where technology is truly embedded into my art practice. I enjoy the challenge (admittedly maddening) of learning technical and media skills. I’m the type of person who actually reads the manual. Yikes! Couple that with life’s experiences and you have a documentary, or VR piece, or Web-Doc, or Projection Mapping Installation that tells a unique story.

It began for me in the early days of using prosumer cameras to capture video diaries designed to compel the viewer to enter the lives and situations of the people in my films. Virtual Reality allowed me to take that concept deeper. VR inherently gives the user more control of how they experience a story coupled with an even deeper immersion into the world being revealed. VR is an exciting way to tell a story but it’s a complicated platform for people to drop into. They have to put on a headset properly, learn to use hand controls & then navigate around within an imaginary world. Projection mapping, on the other hand, puts you into an immersive world immediately. A space where time, media and architecture meet. In my head what I am creating by splashing light and images on 3D objects and walls woven together with moments of video and spatial audio is still the same act of me making one of my earlier documentaries. I have gone from immersing viewers in a person’s life or situation using a 2D Screen format to stories that take place within physically immersive environments. With projection mapping the site visitor is literally wandering around inside the actual ‘frame’ in which the story is being told. You are on the stage and your thoughts and reactions drive the narrative. I love creating these worlds and spending time in them and hope that is reflected in the final project.

LC: The work in this exhibition, entitled RAINDROP, Andre’s Secret Project, is a very recent example of your projection mapping projects. In projection mapping, videos are projected on the surfaces of three-dimensional structures installed in a space and, in your case, often combined with music and sound, creating an immersive experience for the viewer. What attracts you to this technique and how has it evolved for you leading up to the current work installed here at the Wassaic Project?

BP: Previously with work like Self-Storage I wanted the experience for the site visitor to be as abstract as possible. The piece incorporated pieces of my video diaries playing inside dollhouses, my husband’s autobiographical paintings projected across walls and personal objects I’d dragged around from home to home, and even some of the actual moving boxes. But, It was important to me that the story related in Self-Storage, remain as abstract and non-linear as possible so that the site visitor could easily fill in the narrative with their own memories and experiences to reflect on.

Like this earlier work, RAINDROP is still an immersive, media-rich environment - emotionally resonant, memory-inflected, and meant to provoke reflection. However, this time my goal is to circle back to something closer to a narrative story. One where a recognizable journey takes place. And, always, it returns to reminders that this is a poem written by an eleven-year-old boy. Here are his shoes. Here are his crayons. Here’s his writings – complete with misspellings. This is his dream and his life. It doesn’t matter if you come in at the beginning or end – you’re along for the ride.

LC: Taken together, your projection mapping pieces feel very personal, with house sculptures playing an important role as containers of memory and life.  Light and shadow are strong components, as is water imagery. Is there a consistent process that you have developed for creating these beautiful and ephemeral multi-dimensional works of art?

BP: For me the most exciting part of making a documentary was editing. You are literally weaving together a journey for your viewer. First, I have an idea that takes shape in my head and I start assembling that. Then comes my heart. How can I make you truly feel something that helps propel you through the journey and keeps you engaged throughout. And, finally, there’s my gut. Some mistake happens and your jaw drops. Or two clips come together, and it gives you goosebumps. And you sense that you’ve somehow just made the piece stronger – so now you’re suddenly re-shaping the entire documentary tossing out what no longer fits to make all of these magical unexpected ‘moments’ build toward a powerful ending. An example in RAINDROP is the notebook on the nightstand. Originally, I was just going to use the notebook toward the curtain opening to hold a note that explains the origin of the piece. I accidentally projected on it, and it was magic. I moved the notebook deeper into the installation because it was, of course, representative of the origin of the poem and a center point for the installation. Who knew? Head, heart, gut. It's the key to all of my work.

LC: RAINDROP, Andre’s Secret Project, is a particularly personal work as it involves a poem created and read by your son, as described on your website. His enchanting and allegorical writing becomes a rich resource for the creation of this poignant piece.  What was the experience of working with your son in this way to create such a touching and tender piece of art.  

BP: I met Andre in the early 90s while making video diaries for homeless families with AIDS. It didn’t take long for him to adopt my husband, painter Farrell Brickhouse, and I. Andre was 8 when we met him and our time with him comes as close to having a child as Farrell or I will ever get. My video diary, The Andre Show, tells our story but for some reason the poem was never included. Last summer I was playing around with new software to make a VR/AR Headset version of his poem. At the same time, I happened to find a homemade dollhouse that someone had donated to Habitat’s RESTORE that looked just like a house I’d lived in as a child. I had to buy it but had no clue what to do with it. Next a huge tree limb fell down outside my studio. I really wanted to project on trees, so we brought it inside. And we found an old apple picking ladder in the eaves of our barn to hold the limb in place with an orange sandbag that was lying around. I projected some stars on the walls and the next thing I knew I recognized the essence of the setting where the poem was written. RAINDROP: Andre’s Secret Project was born.

The hardest part of sharing his story is that people inevitably ask – and where is he now? He was 11 when he wrote the poem and died from AIDS shortly after. He loved his wrestlers and drawing and life. And that is what I want RAINDROP to celebrate. Andre’s passion and joy and his intuitive deep understanding of life’s meaning. The poem is a gift. All these years later he is still 11 years old to me and flying around somewhere on a condor’s back.