Stirring, Spinning, Sweeping, from the Spinning Tales series, explores three images of traditional women's work.
Since 1992 this performance has been presented throughout New England and New York, at museums, alternative spaces, galleries and universities.
Stirring, Spinning, Sweeping is the first performance from the Spinning Tales series. It is about spinning and dyeing, incorporating historical and technical information on spinning, the history of women’s work, mythology, fairy tales, and personal history of women in my family in New England extending back to 1650.
The piece operates on multiple levels, with images embedded in the activities. I am working with three primary images: the woman at the spinning wheel, the woman over the cauldron, and the woman with the broom.
The performance space begins brightly lit, and slowly becomes dimmer and dimmer, until it is nearly dark. The audience experiences the sensation of dozing in front of a fire on a cold night, listening to tales being spun. While they are listening, the audience engages in the act of spinning raw wool with their own hands. The odor of brewing herbs permeates the room. Bundles of raw fleece, dried herbs and branches are piled up and suspended throughout the space.
The piece begins with historical and practical explanations of the task of making clothing by hand – spinning, dyeing, weaving, sewing. It is a job that has been industrialized for so long that we have forgotten what it entailed, and how much time it consumed in women’s daily lives. I demonstrate spinning wool on a large walking wheel, and use a kettle of fragrant herbs in hot water to dye yarn.
As the piece progresses, I begin to tell family stories, and then gradually weave fairy tales and myths into my family’s history, so that it is difficult to distinguish between fact and legend. Images gradually emerge out of the stories. They are images of death, of spinning and sleeping and dying. In one tale the thirteenth fairy transforms the curse of death into a hundred year sleep at the prick of a spindle. In another story a girl holds a man’s life in her hands as she spins his shroud. Another girl spins until her fingers bleed, then falls into a well trying to retrieve her spindle, only to awake in another land. At the heart of the piece is the image of the three Fates spinning the destinies of humankind, cutting the threads of life when it is time to die.
Who are these women who lean over their cauldrons and sit at their spinning wheels? Are they evil witches or old wise women? What knowledge do they have that we have forgotten? Should we fear them, or come when they beckon us?
Subsequent performances took place throughout New England and New York State, at museums, alternative spaces, galleries and universities.