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A close-up photograph of the flooring inside a dome shaped tent. It is handmade from cream coloured fabric and red stitching that result in pentagon and diamond shapes. In the distance (at the top of the image), the floor runs into the tent walls, which are also made of cream colored fabric and red stitching. These walls are supported by wooden rods and red strings.
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Tent (post-nomadic) 8

Greg Shelnutt

It just came to me. I had this nascent thought: a tent. I've learned to listen to these thoughts, to trust the "discovery through making" and to seek to ignore the disquieting voices of self doubt that regularly tell me how much I suck an can't go shit, or that all my best work is behind me. Sure, I know this intellectually isn't true (most of the time), but emotionally, it's a real issue. Not just for me, mind you: I reckon it's the human condition. [Look at Natalie Goldberg's "The Trouble with the Editor," from Writing Down the Bones; gospel!

I worked on this piece over the course of one and a half years over the course of the pandemic. It's a quintessentially pandemic piece: during the early stages, while we we in a more strict lockdown, it was a form I could do at home: I had fabric & a sewing machine, and I could work in my living room. I also converted my garage into a welding and woodworking studio.

Too, I listened to a LOT of WXPN (out of Philly) radio and a lot of podcasts, especially Alie Ward's Ologies. Those two things and making art got me through. Actually, as a tenured faculty member, I was hugely fortunate to have a stable income and a very supportive university. I actually got much more time in the studio being out of the office.

These were also processed I could work on with Covid-19. Sewing wasn't too taxing, so I did it through out the several weeks of my illness (with a lot of naps, too, mind you).