The Big Bamboo
Blinds allow privacy, while still allowing you to peer out into the world. The Big Bamboo explores the theme of what is exposed and what is hidden. The lines of the artist’s prose were transcribed on the slats of a vintage venetian blind, printed in vinyl; the poem is only visible when the blinds are shut.
“Written precisely on those surfaces that anyone who has such window treatments knows are stubborn to clean, Coit’s poetry lives literally between these clever cracks, pressed onto the metal slats that control not only what is on them but also light and visual access. A means of bringing the viewer inside of her character’s head, Big Bamboo is also very much about voyeurism itself, insofar as blinds, like curtains, not only provide privacy but also tempt us to look beyond them, from either side. By covering up something—even a wall—they lure us to discover what they hide.” - Jennie Hirsh, from “Before and After Language: The Art of Madelin Coit”
Full text can be found below the images.
The text reads:
She stood at the Wisteria vine. Its fallen flowers no longer dotted the cement patio. She liked those light grey slabs outlined by pea green grass and littered with purple, because she had an Impressionist aesthetic sired by a color cartoon sensibility. The two cast columns at her left had arrived in halves and had been assembled in half a day and then a door was cut in the wall to allow her to see pretend Tuscany in Southern California north light, from her bed.
Directly ahead of her was a stand of giant bamboo, Old Hamiii. Each culm six inches round by forty feet or so. Her eyes felt up the forty foot bamboo and touched everything her body could not reach. She had done this landscape like any other painting, led around by color, shape, and texture, much the way a dog is led by scent.
Mulling over the idea of having a birthday party in this garden, she imagined her friends standing around listening to the Knudsen brothers crooning fifties harmonies, a cappella, from the largest cement square. Doo-op music spoon fed to them by their parents. They had a half hour repertoire which went on until your budget ran out.
She gazed through the Alphonse Kerr. A slim yellow and green striped bamboo that made an arbor between the house and garage. It framed the end of a lap pool, and drew the eye to Canary Island Pines. Giant ladies with ten inch needles in pompom bundles, two, maybe three hundred feet tall to tickle the sky.
Her eyes felt up the forty foot bamboo. She had noticed this talent while a student in an art history class looking at slides of an odalisque by Ingres. Her legs fell asleep and her eyes crawled over the nude as she thought his pencil had.
Now her mind was piled with plans for her first birthday party for herself. Piled like a salad plate from a 'one visit only' salad bar. Teetering menus, rentals lists, arrangements with guest's names sprinkled on top.
Her eyes felt up the forty foot bamboo, taking in each color, line, texture. Nearly able to tap at the sticky dew at the base of the leaves. Her eyes watched a bee go in for liquid.
On the edge of her fifth decade her eyes felt up the forty foot bamboo- carefully, respectfully. More deeply but more gently than her hands could ever do. She didn't know which she honored more, her eyes that could tell her about her world with nearly a sexual intimacy or the objects brought to her through her eyes. They were equally miraculous, of central joy. Her eyes could feel up forty foot bamboo and the bamboo liked it too.
___
c 1998 m.b. coit orig. c 1993