Blooming Babel: February 2015

Sierra's mom and Burn Richards are both in their second marriages. Now married to each other, they spend a lot of time shopping for the grandchild. Even though the baby is not biologically related to Burn, he cares very much about her. He is nonplussed by his step daughter, Sierra.

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The grandparents meet at a hip art gallery. Joby's parents bring the baby.

There may be some sort of electricity between Joby's mom Valencia and Burn.

Doting grandparents.

Joby's father Federico does not approve.

Valencia is fun-loving and playful, a contrast to Federico's stern mien.

But even Fred is softened by the infant.

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Elegant Valencia quiet moments at home. Artwork by Sue Fandel.

Sue Fandel Rocks the Role as classy grandma...
Background artwork by Sue Fandel

Blooming Babel

family dynamics, a social contract, and the workings of identity and power within that family system + greater social systems.

Stacey Rivet as Sierra; Ryan Schnirel as Joby

Blooming Babel

Recall Kim Gordon's quote about people paying to watch others who believe in themselves.

Sierra's mom's belief in herself is either false or incomplete.

A woman is important. How important, she does not know. She has a sense of her role in life, and to her that imparts a necessity for her being. But that is not what is truly, actually important about her, that’s not why she is important to the world and universe.This woman is Sierra’s mom. That is how she is known to people around her, which is why she thinks that her role as mother is what makes her count in the world. And now Sierra has a baby, so Sierra’s mom is even more important because she is a Grandmother. Grandmother is a role in life that feels like a gift to many, because they get to enjoy the grandchildren without the day-to-day drudgery of cleaning, feeding, and raising them. Sierra’s mom enjoys playing with the baby, and proudly strolls through public places with the tiny bundle of joy. Even when her son-in-law Joby comes along. Though he is, well, different in certain ways, he is still very good with the baby. Maybe even better than Sierra is, but it’s hard for Sierra’s mom to admit this, even to herself.Sierra’s mom finds herself reading more and more about child rearing. She knows this is not necessary because her child/ren are/is adults now. There is a shadow of discomfort that grows a tiny bit each time she is with her daughter and grandchild. Sierra’s mom does not want to admit to herself (yet) that the discomfort is caused by Sierra’s inability to connect with the child. Much deeper and farther along the road to realization in Sierra’s mom’s mind is the truth that she has raised a child who is utterly disrespectful. Still further along the road is waiting the truth that she raised Sierra this way because she was taught, erroneously, that her own importance in the world was based on motherhood.

This definition of herself provided decreasingly easy solutions to feelings of discontent, restlessness, and even indecision throughout Sierra’s mom’s adult life. Anytime there was a stirring in her that she couldn’t immediately identify, she could supplant it with a rote responsibility that relieved her of making any type of reflective decision. She would simply do whatever prescribed task related to housekeeping, childcare, or husband-centered obligation.

About this project:

Blooming Babel is a book (and blog) inspired by French romans-photos and Mexican and Italian fotonovelas (photo novels), and by a New Yorker article that extols the benefits of talking to very young children.

Blooming Babel tells the story of a set of family interactions. Using texts, photographs, and other graphics, it looks at the power and identity systems within the family, and in the greater social context. But the project is also a tool to critically take apart ("unpack" & "deconstruct") social bias and hegemony underlying media.

The plot is this: A woman known as "Sierra's mom," learns that children develop more language skills and higher IQs if their parents engaged them in conversation (even if unidirectional when the kids are pre-verbal) from the time they were born (there is really data that indicates this--but how good is that data?).The woman's adult daughter, Sierra, has a baby, and Sierra's mom worries that Sierra may not be talking to the baby enough. Sierra's mom is hesitant to approach Sierra bout this because Sierra is very defensive about her parenting skills, especially when her mother tries to help. However, Sierra's mother feels that Sierra's husband, Joby is more approachable and hopes to get him on board with talking to the baby, even though he is different.

A subplot is that Sierra is very interested in fashion modeling, to a degree that Sierra'sw mom finds worrisome. Related to this, Joby gets upset with Sierra because she spends $80 on real gold leaf to put on her fingernails because she saw it in a French fashion magazine (this actually was in a magazine--don't know if it's real gold leaf or not). In that same French magazine are images of a model who resembles my colleague, Stacey. I'd like to merge this imagery into the plot and plan to style Stacey/Sierra so that she looks even more like this model. Ryan will appear mostly looking like his usual self.

These ideas come from actual media that I have seen/read. I'm not sure why I chose the photo novel format. I think it may intersect all the other forms I use: film, digital & social media, handmade books: all are sequential and include imagery. One inspiration was a wall in Marseilles where someone had pasted pages from a French photo novel. I like that the Wikipedia article below points out that photo novels are an effective way to distribute information, and also to make the essence of movies available to a wider audience. Interestingly, I saw an old Spark episode on public tv which featured the artist Sandow Birk. He said that the way to reach more people with his art is to make a book. Go figure, they say the book is disappearing, and I keep finding ways that books are continuing to be important means of information distribution. Class- based. Not everyone has a computer, no they really don't! Not everyone is middle class, wow! And yet, this piece of art will only be seen by a small segment of the middle class. Oh, well, I am what I is.

Cast:

Sierra - Stacey Rivet

Sierra's mom - me
Joby - Ryan Schnirel
Joby's mom, Valencia - Sue Fandel

Joby's dad - Alfred Hernandez
Joby's (judgemental, over-achieving) brother - Alfred Hernandez

Sierra's dad, Burn Richards - Andy Burns

Crew:
Claire Bain - Writer, Director, Props, Camera, Editor, etc.

Sam Russell- Consulting Stylist

Settings:

Westfield Mall, Macy's Small Scale Furniture Section, Art Explosion Studios

Other settings are likely, some decorated them with the actors' artwork: all of us are artists.

Information sources:

"Femme actuelle (Modern woman)" magazine, December 9, 2014 - January 4, 2015 and January 5-11, 2015

Wikipedia
The New Yorker Magazine's biased article "The Talking Cure" The New Yorker magazine, January 12, 2015

Current public service announcements about talking to your kids.

Other inspiration:

A recipe in a sort of high-end magazine for risotto with a sheet of gold leaf on top. Now you, too, can feel rich enough to eat gold and shit it out...of course, nobody that rich cooks for themselves, but the readers of this mag can feel oh so ostentatious.