CREATING SANATORIUM STAGE

CREATING SANATORIUM STAGE

Sanatorium Stage

Seventh-day Adventist Church

Sanatorium Stage

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The seventh day. Sabbath day, the day of reposing according to the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments.
A baptismal font, large as a bathtub, behind a stage. Worn out curtains in front. The smell of stale smoke. Bags of cement where water once stood in the old bathtub. Windows only contacting sky, too high to see anything of the streets below. The church organ taken away, leaving an emptiness behind the stage balcony above.

I stood in the abandoned church. Dust, boards and garbage bags. Gloomy and bald. The shabby light shining from two sides on either side of the stage. Too little to cast shadows on the ground.
The jazz club had invited me to do 'something' with the temporarily unused stage in the main hall. Cleaning up seemed like a good start. Then my animals would follow, with their various physical aids, such as canes, walkers and crutches. I had started the collection some time before, having an 'Hospital Island' in mind back then; but a 'Sanatorium Stage' seemed like a good alternative to me to turn to.
I had just graduated and was happy with every staging opportunity that presented itself.

Invalid. A bit poor as an artwork. That would be my sanatorium. In the appearance of the residents, but also in the end result. I didn't really succeed with the island that was supposed to become a podium. A finger exercise on scale, that's what it became. I dragged and cleared and thought of the church that was no longer a church. Where had the church gone with its fellowship? I looked them up, and read about beliefs and prophecies and how the bathtub had actually been used. The baptism symbolic for the union with Christ. And Advent was about his arrival. Then, and in the future. He would return to earth and live among us. That was the core of the church, from which the community had moved. Not even that long ago.
I moved my animals, added a few more, and hung new curtains alongside the bathtub. A large red H to denote the current destination. Something about a hospital, a sanatorium, a place to be sick and recover from things. That was what the furry residents did there, who had arrived by then, and at the same time they were kind of on vacation. Suitcases, an umbrella, a lounger. Since I initially headed for an island, I already collected this stuff, for a temporary permanent residence. A temporary permanent state of being.
A ceaseless recovery from our pains and misfortunes. Constant change, constant recovery. Merged with their tools for moving through life, keeping straight, or just hang on. A liquor bottle, a blindfold, a piece of wood that keeps you peddling or afloat, depending the circumstances.

Will there be a resurrection of Christ in specific? I do not know.
I do know I see ‘resurrection’ in general around me every day.
“Everything, animate and inanimate, will declare that God is love.”
That as well I do not know for sure. In fact I personally doubt it.
But love, yes. I’m sensing a spirit of love around me every day too.
Just passing by.

The seventh day. Sabbath day, the day of reposing according to the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments.
A baptismal font, large as a bathtub, behind a stage. Worn out curtains in front. The smell of stale smoke. Bags of cement where water once stood in the old bathtub. Windows only contacting sky, too high to see anything of the streets below. The church organ taken away, leaving an emptiness behind the stage balcony above.

I stood in the abandoned church. Dust, boards and garbage bags. Gloomy and bald. The shabby light shining from two sides on either side of the stage. Too little to cast shadows on the ground.
The jazz club had invited me to do 'something' with the temporarily unused stage in the main hall. Cleaning up seemed like a good start. Then my animals would follow, with their various physical aids, such as canes, walkers and crutches. I had started the collection some time before, having an 'Hospital Island' in mind back then; but a 'Sanatorium Stage' seemed like a good alternative to me to turn to.
I had just graduated and was happy with every staging opportunity that presented itself.

Invalid. A bit poor as an artwork. That would be my sanatorium. In the appearance of the residents, but also in the end result. I didn't really succeed with the island that was supposed to become a podium. A finger exercise on scale, that's what it became. I dragged and cleared and thought of the church that was no longer a church. Where had the church gone with its fellowship? I looked them up, and read about beliefs and prophecies and how the bathtub had actually been used. The baptism symbolic for the union with Christ. And Advent was about his arrival. Then, and in the future. He would return to earth and live among us. That was the core of the church, from which the community had moved. Not even that long ago.
I moved my animals, added a few more, and hung new curtains alongside the bathtub. A large red H to denote the current destination. Something about a hospital, a sanatorium, a place to be sick and recover from things. That was what the furry residents did there, who had arrived by then, and at the same time they were kind of on vacation. Suitcases, an umbrella, a lounger. Since I initially headed for an island, I already collected this stuff, for a temporary permanent residence. A temporary permanent state of being.
A ceaseless recovery from our pains and misfortunes. Constant change, constant recovery. Merged with their tools for moving through life, keeping straight, or just hang on. A liquor bottle, a blindfold, a piece of wood that keeps you peddling or afloat, depending the circumstances.

Will there be a resurrection of Christ in specific? I do not know.
I do know I see ‘resurrection’ in general around me every day.
“Everything, animate and inanimate, will declare that God is love.”
That as well I do not know for sure. In fact I personally doubt it.
But love, yes. I’m sensing a spirit of love around me every day too.
Just passing by.