Revised Trailer

Cleaned up and more first person:

I am a Jane Doe with three families: my birth parents, my adoptive parents, and my stepmother' family. I belong to them all - yet none claim me as their child. When I visit the doctor's office, I force back a wave of tears as I draw an X through the section asking for my family medical history. If I let the wave crash, I fear I would drown in my own tears.

Maybe the part of me that cries at Volkswagen commercials is hereditary. Maybe I am at risk for certain diseases; maybe I should be checking a different box for my ethnicity. I'm filling in the blanks for my own history. Adoptees are denied the right to their historic and genetic identities. This is what I know - I am made up of three parts: what my life has made me, what I've made out of that life, and the one who gave me life. According to the New York State Adoption Registry, her name is NOT APPLICABLE.

There's a way to buy anything - even a child. In the US, there is a dirth of healthy white babies available for adoption. When something is in demand, a rare commodity, there's always someone looking for a way to profit from those who are willing to pay the price. But at what cost to the couple, the child - how far would someone go to get the goods? I was purchased by a couple with the highest bid – the price that was right for a baby broker who in the 1970’s revolutionized the adoption industry in the United States. Three years later that couple divorced, and at age 8, my mother was deemed unfit to raise a child and my father was granted full custody.

With my birth certificate sealed, I posted and searched through countless internet message boards to find my birth parents. While I found no information about my own family, I did find adoptees and birth mothers whose adoptions were orchaestrated by the same lawyer. I'm in touch with a Knoxville police officer and birth mother Jaymie who is now a professional searcher. According to Jaymie, my mother was coerced into giving me up for adoption. She's been tracking the lawyers business for 30 years. She says that birth mothers are misunderstood - and most want to be found. I'd just like to know where I came from, what my ethnicity is, and if she looks like me. It's human to want these answers. It's inhumane to keep them a secret.

Jaymie's not the only one who supports this notion. (This is from a book - need reference) "Methods of procuring the babies include obtaining signed relinquishments from mothers under duress or coercion, admitting a pregnant woman to a hospital under the name of the adopter or falsely telling the mother "the baby died" shortly after birth and falsifying the original birth record, and actual purchase from economically disadvantaged parents in the U.S." Did this happen to my mother? Does she think that I am not alive? Many adoptees and birth parents, those without a tribe, post on message boards on the birth day. Not a year has gone by where I haven't looked.

JAYMIE: "In my searches I have found several natural mothers who had committed suicide on or near the birthday of their relinquished child. I don't think these women did this out of fear of their identity being discovered one day in the future. I think they did this out of total despair. Despair over a system of closed adoption, a system that didn't allow them to have the hope that one day they would get to know the adult that once was their child."

What I do know is that there are people who have revised my history. There are others, thousands of me, looking for where they came from. So I'm going to meet with them and visit my adoptive parents, longtime family friends, and the lawyer behind the curtain - people who know more about the historical me than I do. At the same time, Jaymie will begin her search for my mother. The woman my stepmother thinks is named Mary Mayo, the woman my father said grew up in Long Island, the woman I met only once the first time I ever cried. Maybe I'll find her, maybe I'll find another family in my birth and adoptee friends scattered across the country, maybe I am Marnie Mayo. Maybe I'm not.

The end of the story is not about seeking one adoptee’s history, but about relationships lost and found, those who unknowingly sold their children, the others who’ve learned that they came with an expensive price tag, and those who set the price and profited from a profoundly personal and painful experience.

brokedown ballerina girl

poor girl only has half a tu-tu. When I received the box from the eBay seller, I almost gave it a neutral rating: sure it's vintage and she didn't say it was perfect, but wow, it is trashed and the ballerina is a hot mess. Then I realized that the creepy music box that plays out of tune and my banged up dancing girl is just perfect for the part. Very lucky, ebay seller.

Here she is - she wouldn't be your first pick for the chorus line but she's me, and I am her.

always the same day

been waiting to get feedback on my treatment and lock down dates to shoot the funding trailer. I know email - we think people are fibbing when they say "it must have ended up in my spam" but working for an internet company, I know that email is less reliable than we think. MUCH less. So I did my follow up because it's the right thing to do. Some people think following up is annoying people - you *have* to follow up with people because it's your responsibility, a favor that you are asking of them, and let's face it, people have other things to do. As they should. It's your high priority, not theirs.
Of course I get a response from two different people within 30 minutes of each other. It always happens that way and although it isn't planned, I think we tend to respond to things at the same time. There has to be some reason why it always happens at the same time.
So I'll have a borrowed camera soon and feedback on the trailer. We're moving but sometimes you have to plug along while you wait for the other pieces. I have a photo of the jewelry box. I can't wait to see how it all comes together. I'm guessing the trailer will be shot by the first week of September - edited by mid-September. That's wishful thinking.

To buy, rent, borrow or beg

We're ready to shoot the pitch trailer. In fact we are more than ready: we've got the photos, mobile, chandelier, and I just bought the jewelry box. So - with shipping - we'll be ready by the weekend. The pitch trailer is necessary for more than funding, it is to see how David and I work together, how David is feeling/working behind the camera (with my content), outreach to align with non-profits, and a visual reference to get anyone involved with the project. It's a big deal and I'm super excited. While I can see the entire piece, the reality of embarking on this journey is hard for me to wrap my head around. Visiting some of the people along the way is awfully scary, but certainly not even close to where I've been before. The trial is always a good frame of reference.
The big time hold up is camera equipment. Here are my choices:
To Buy: I'll have it all the time, it will be easier to edit, I can use the camera for other projects, I can *learn* how to use the camera and I never have to ask this question again.
To Rent: There are some cheap rentals through Table members (you guys rock). I'm just afraid of missing moments. I wish I could attach a camera to my head and it would produce high quality footage. Also, if I rent for too many days, why not just buy a camera?
To Borrow: We have an insane number of friends who have cameras. It's kind of like asking to borrow their husbands, even if they are collecting dust in their closet. The cameras!
To Beg: Well I call it inquiring. Maybe someone wants to help a first timer. Maybe it can be a barter exchange. That would be nice.
A friend said I could borrow one of his but I haven't heard back from him. Is it rude to call again? I'll email, then call.
Aiming for this weekend. I'll post my very very lame vid of the twirling photos. We just wanted to see how it moved. So like this, but 1 million times better.

do not touch baby mobile

our baby mobile is a chandelier. It's light, reflection and what is out of your reach.

techie stress

I hate to get stressed on the weekends. Sometimes when you have too many balls in the air you need to just turn that store sign over to "CLOSED" and rest, or bake cookies, or hike, maybe clean the kitchen. Other sources of creative inspiration can help you get out of an inspiration rut, but doesn't help as much when it's something technical or logistics. We need a camera - people have cameras and they are expensive. I mean so much so that it's cheaper to buy than to rent. But I don't want to buy a camera. I'm not the director of photography and in order to raise funds, I need a trailer. Chicken = egg, Egg = chicken. Scrambled.

I'm waiting to hear back from a friend who offered, and if not, hmm, well then I'll send an email to both groups I post in. Ack, I don't know- my head hurts.

I can't wait to see how these two come together in the trailer. See next post.

Just some minor construction - things have a way of working themselves out.

Storybook format for trailer

Because my creative eye is whimsy and it's an ironic twist on the film, I think I'll filling in the pages of this book for the trailer. I'm loving it. It's so precious and sweet and for my trailer, kind of twisted in the vein of my mixed media installation, "What's After The End". I only have slides of the installation but I'm getting them converted.

Here's the book cover---can't wait to see all of the inside pages

Oh - and yes - I will get permission!

Self portraits by the sounds of the philharmonic

I just returned from listening to the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. My friend's parents have box seats and for classical, that means you are sitting at a table with a "waiter" serving your every whim. We had our own food, and wine, lots of conversation so we were pretty self sufficient . As I sat there with glass in hand, I wondered what the others were thinking when they listened to the sound. For me classical music clears my head of the muck of the mundane - work, stress, problems, errands - and goes straight to the creative. How am I shooting the trailer? The words came to me, the visuals in place, the way I imagine it to be. I faltered on a few "maybe this is too specific" but this blog is all about commiting the ideas to paper and then decide.
SO:
I was thinking about how my artwork has always been self portraits. Oftentimes mixed media but more specifically I thought of the series I shot around 1998. I guess it was after the fall, when I moved to Park Slope. I shot a series of self portraits in a white eyelet cotton slip and a big illuminated stomach with a cord hanging from the edge of my slip, down to my feet and plugged into the wall. I took the images and made photo transfers, ironed and sewed them on to the original slip and performed a surgery to make the round illuminated stomach permanent in the dress. At the time I was fascinated with the simple idea of lights on/lights off, communication flowing/communication severed. At which end?I spray painted silk roses and stuck them into the stomach. This piece was really about the death of an unborn. I didn't think of it that way, I didn't really think at all but I called it "orbed" and another "unplugged" so yeah, I guess we are talking about abortion, or really just losing a life before it began. Let me be clear about this: about abortion does not mean against abortion. The piece was picked up by Hofstra College for a show produced by SAF, Survivors Art Foundation. I was out of town whent the show went up and despite my directions, the pieces were installed completely wrong. They lost their meaning. But I still remember.

Tonight I realized how personal this story needs to be - because that's what it's about - being adopted and wanting to know where you came from. If I am going to interview family members, shouldn't I "interview" myself? The artwork is a direct connection to my yearning to know where I came from. While the film is about baby brokers and adoption in the US, it is specifically about my experience as an adoptee and finding out that I was sold. Even though I didn't know this until recently, it was never right and I've explored this in my work many times. So that's my jumping off point- the self portraits, the self. People have such difficulty accessing information, their subjects - I have mine right here. Thousands of images. That's where all the questions begin to take a shape of their own. So that's where I will begin.