Honoring Mama Gaia. For my Birthday celebration I invited artist friends to create site-specific performances: Evangel King, Benjie Lasseau, Stuart Rabinowitsh, Ron Ortman, Hilary Cadwell, Ted Rabinowitsh, Andrew Zarillo.
Standing on a flattened schist slab in an amphitheater over looking the Pacific, I recalled my birthday pilgrimages to Artemisia in Efes, Turkey, and how the ancient stones communicated with me. For my 80th birthday ritual I decided to let the stones’ energies - known to be the oldest rock in the planet - along with the resonance emanating from the surrounding redwoods, inform my dancing and vocalizing. I was costumed as the primordial bird ceremoniously cracking open the universe, shape-shifting into the distant pre-Zeus past when the feminine was venerated and her voice - TRUTH. This experience humbles me. A culmination of all of my work with paper, dance, voice, invited artists and audience.
photo credit: Tim Volz
Performance Images
After the performance I returned to place sheets of paper on the schist I had danced on. Using pencils and oil sticks, I made random marks with my right hand (I am left handed), then I placed the drawings in the grass and painted while singing Mozart’s “Alleluja”.
Paintings
Erin Rose Thomas created my bird costume and mask from my up-cycled paintings.
Mother Tree-Canto XXIX. October 6, 2023 - September 6, 2024
Yes to protecting our beautiful planet. Interactive performance in a paper covered gallery window with the audience as the chorus and my Sicilian Grandmother's crocheted table runner as wings.
Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
Mother Tree-Canto XXIX, 2024. Thematic artworks on/with/of paper installed in the gallery.
From October 2023 to September 2024 I presented monthly performances in the gallery, on the sidewalk in front of the gallery windows and once in a private garden on themes relating to Mother Tree, such as “Forgiveness Flows in Streams”, “She Hears Our Calls”, “Pollen”, “Alleluia”.
The Genesis for “Mother Tree” arose when Choreographer Evangel King invited artist friends to make an altar honoring the dead and install it in a place of decay. Shortly thereafter, during a voice lesson I sang the text from Jared Farmer’s NYT essay, “The Wisdom of Ancient Trees”. Afterwards I walked outside to our tiny redwood grove carrying my altar; a handmade paper tray with feathers, gold thread, pine needles, and some of my mother’s ashes. Placing it beside a redwood, I began intoning my mother’s name, her mother’s name, my great grandmother’s name.
In my gallery window, I suspended two 8 foot high x 4 foot wide handmade paper “Ancestral Cloths” that are embossed with my Sicilian Grandmother’s tatting. I placed a tiny redwood branch in a glass jar filled with water along with my Catal Hoyuck Mother Goddess statue.
It's February, 2 years into Covid. One winter's sunset I walked to the confluence of Ten Mile River and the ocean north of Fort Bragg, CA. Too deep to cross, I watch transfixed a refracting sunset sky ride waves sinking into sand leaving momentary blizzards of incandescent hot pink sizzle. 2 part Performance Ritual with friends. The still images at the beginning of the video are from Part 1 that was presented in Fort Bragg in my gallery window and along the sidewalk on August 3. Part 2 was presented at Seaside Beach.
The Canto Series are site specific performance ceremonies and installations of related artworks with paper that have been experienced globally. Canto II took place on a cluster of rocks in the South China Sea, Canto XIV took place at District Six in CapeTown S.A. Canto XI occurred at Catal Hoyuck,Turkey.
Paper is my semaphore.
Editors: Stuart Rabinowitsh, Diana Marto
Videographers: Gillian Garro, Stuart Rabinowitsh
Photo credit: Tim Volz
Confluence-Canto XXVIII, Window Performance, Part 1. August 5, 2022, Diana Marto - Arts, Ft. Bragg, CA
At sunset I walked to the confluence of Ten Mile River and the ocean,
holding a small lucky stone. Too deep to cross, I watched transfixed,
a refracting sunset sky ride waves sinking into sand
leaving momentary blizzards of incandescent hot pink sizzle.
Confluence - Ten Mile River Sumi, iridescent acrylic, oil stick, 22 x 30 in., 2020
photo credit: Marie-Luise Klotz
Confluence-Ten Mile River Series video, 2021
Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
A Stone is Singing-Canto XXVII. December 28 - February 3, 2019
Diana Marto A Stone Is Singing-Canto XXVII
Installation with Sound Baths at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA.
Dec. 28-February 3, 2019
Photo Credit Marna Clarke
December 28 - February 3, 2019
A Stone is Singing - Canto XXVII Vocal and Calligraphic Environment
The Sumi brush painted recordings are inspired by her recent pilgrimage to Japan.
Opening reception with teaser performance: Saturday, December 29, 2:30 PM Sound Baths performance (RSVP): Saturday & Sunday, January 12-13, 2019 2:30-4:10 pm
Installation | July 6 - August 12, 2018 with Video of Solo Pro Arts Window Performance
Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
Performance | May 10, 2018 with Benjie Lasseau and Stuart Rabinowitsh
Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA
Performance, Solo| May 4, 2018
Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA
Installation| April 13 - May 18, 2018
Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, CA
Call of the wild,
call of the light,
call to be a warrior in the face
of global and personal upheaval.
Performance Images
You may wonder about my title, Jaguars and Angels before Christmas in 2016, during a sound healing in the jungle in Guatemala, I experienced a jaguar inhabiting my body. At the time I was learning to sing Hildegard of Bingen’s celestial songs. So I became immersed in both potencies. Time passed and then the culture of misinformation tsunamied us.
Diana Marto
Jaguars and Angels Canto XXVI Part Two, Installation with Performances in Pro Arts Window, Oakland, CA, May 4, 2018.
Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
This Canto is a ritual of renewal, ignited by the intense political climate we live in. Here, I am taring away illusion to arrive at truth. The libretto for this Paper Opera combines paper sounds and sung written words. The two destroyed paintings were from my Fukushima Daichi Series and Diving Deep Series. The ensemble performance with Benjie Lasseau, performance artist and Stuart Rabinowitsh, musician took place along Broadway Street, Frank Ogawa Plaza, on the walkway in front of Pro Arts and inside the narrow windows. Benjie’s and my masks were cast from our faces. Stuart played a Scarlatti Sonata and improvised on the accordion. Ann Moss played cymbals.
Performance Images
Jaguars and Angels-Canto XXVI, Part One. March 24 - April 9, 2017
Installation | March 24 - April 9, 2017 Rhizosphere Exhibition, Midway Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Performance | April 1, 2017 for Rhizosphere at the Midway Gallery, San Francisco, CA,
in conjunction with 100 Days Action
Diana Marto
Jaguars and Angels-Canto XXVI Part One, Light, #7 & 8, Midway Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2017
Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
You may wonder about my title, Jaguars and Angels before Christmas in 2016, during a sound healing in the jungle in Guatemala, I experienced a jaguar inhabiting my body. At the time I was learning to sing Hildegard of Bingen’s celestial songs. So I became immersed in both potencies. Time passed and then the culture of misinformation tsunamied us.
Performance Images
Sculpture installation with an interactive performance took place, during the 2017 Rhizosphere Exhibition at the Midway Gallery in San Francisco in conjunction with 100 Days of Action in the Bay Area. My audience became the chorus as I read the full page list of Truths published in the New York Times while standing on a soapbox, holding a large dried paint brush, the talking stick, in front of my 2 suspended paper sculptures. At the end of the performance, audience members stepped onto the soapbox, bearing the paint brush to declare their Truth.
Jaguars and Angels-Canto XXVI, Part One. June 30 - August 6, 2017
Installation Gallery Route One
Point Reyes Station, CA
Photo: Stuart Rabinowitsh
I’ve written Truth at least 100 times
on paper fragments from my
Golden Room Series.
I’ve scratched the letters and traced over
them with my finger dipped in sumi ink.
Every time I write truth, I strip skin,
marrow, tissue from bone.
Every time I write truth I feel it’s essence,
it’s energy making it’s way
through darkness.
80 Truths were installed with the soapbox and paintbrush at Gallery Route One. Viewers were invited to step onto the soapbox to declare their truth and document their declarations.
Golden Room-Canto XXV. 2014 - 2016
Exhibition | September 23 - October 30, 2016 Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
Performance | October 23, 2016 In the installation
Performance | Wave | October 16, 2016 The Grandi Building, Wave Mural
Point Reyes Station, CA
Performance | In The Rubble | October 9, 2016 The Grandi Building, Rubble Courtyard,
Point Reyes Station, CA
Performance | October 2, 2016 In the installation
Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
Performance | Bird Song| September 25, 2016 Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA
Golden Room-Canto XXV, 2016 | September 25, October 2, 9, 2016 Exploration of freeing forms from rectangles and sadness and grief from the heart. Installation and compiled performances with suspended and free-standing paper sculptures in Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, CA. Sept. 25, Oct. 2, 9, 2016. Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
The Wave | October 16, 2016 Live improvisation with silver mylar on a sidewalk in front of a wave mural in Point Reyes Station.
Excerpt from Golden Room. Canto XXV. Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
Bird Song| September 25, 2016 Video: Stuart Rabinowitsh
An immersive experience of saturated yellow paintings, sculptures and cut-outs, inspired by Chinese spirit paper used in funereal practices, “Golden Room” is the culmination of a process of discovery from 2014-2016. My heart strung out on a clothes-line when tragedy collided into my extended family. I stepped onto a long roll of paper on my studio floor and drew an irregular rectangle using a fat yellow oil paint crayon. My studio became a yellow jungle. Forms liberated from the rectangle became sails, calalilies, whales’ beaks, fins, the sun’s path. All in a dance of shadow, light, empty space. I installed this series for my solo show in Gallery Route One. For the opening performance, Terry Sendgraff’s Improvisation/Performance Group, consisting of Ruth Ichinaga, Hilary Cadwell, Linda Aron-Cort, Jeannine Chappell, Marilyn Scholze, Benjie Lasseau, Jan Deder, Nancy Leatzow, and myself sang my “Bird Song” throughout the installation.
Performance Images
Golden Room | October 2 and 22, 2016
Photo: Stuart Rabinowitsh
Free-Standing Paper Sculptures used in Performances
Photo: Stuart Rabinowitsh
Wave | October 16, 2016
Photo: Elizabeth Fenwick
In the Rubble| October 9, 2016
Photo: Elizabeth Fenwick
Whale Guardian, Canto XIX (excerpt)
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA, 2007
The Canto Series
Diana Marto's Epic Spirit Play with Paper & Dance
In the late
70’s to mid 80’s I lived in Japan and Hong Kong. I
discovered the traditional uses of handmade paper in spiritual
practices, and learned the ancient practice of papermaking without
the use of machinery. During that time Kei Takei, the world renown
choreographer and dancer named me one of Japan’s young choreographers
for the American Dance Festival, Tokyo. While
touring papermakers and papermaking villages in Japan I paid my respects
to the Paper Goddess at her shrine in the mountains. It
began to snow and I had a vision of the Paper Goddess “snowing” paper
all over
the land to bring healing
to the people. From this experience I developed my Canto Series,
my epic spirit play with paper and dance. They
are visual journals of the teachings
I receive
from the land, both performance art
rituals and installations of related art works. My first Canto
took place in a Kyoto gallery and on a jetty in the Kamo River
where I danced with 40 feet of paper, making a sculpture garden.
The Cantos explore the themes
of the mythos of place, the sea, and life passages.
They are site-specific solo and group performances
which incorporate storytelling, dance, and live sound
scores for voice and musical instruments.
For instance "Canto XIX, Whale Guardian," is a site-specific performance with cast paper whale bones and an installation which is presented in out-door venues and art centers. The installation consists of suspended cast paper whale bones, cast wall relief sculptures with embedded sea kelp and a film of mother and baby whales cavorting in the birthing lagoons.
2010 Dying Seal
End Game, Canto XX
The Cheese Factory
Petaluma, CA Installation and Solo Performance which includes a film of a decaying whale documented for 5 months.
2006 Whale Guardian Canto
XIX, SOMArts, CA Solo
Performance with Whale sounds &
Stuart Rabinowitsh
playing Waterphone.
Video credit: Stuart Rabinowitsh
2005 Honoring the Whales Canto
XVIII, Sausalito, CA Whale Bone Path created
by the audience & performers.
2005 Honoring
the Whales Canto
XVIII, Sausalito, CA Sounding
the Conch as the Whale Guardian is born aloft.
