Interviewee: Jo Dery

Interviewer: Robin Amer

Interview date: November 10, 2002

1:26

RA: If you just want to start by telling me your full name and how old you are

JD: my full full name?

RA: as much as you want to tell me

JD: my name is Jo Dery. what else did you want to know?

RA: how old you are

JD: I'm 24. I'm gonna be 25 soon.

RA: cool. And where you're originally from and where you grew up.

JD: I'm from Massachusettes, I'm from Attleboro, like 15 minutes from here. I grew up there, totally. My mom and dad are from Rhode Island. My dad is from Pawtuckett and my mom is from Central Falls, and they met and left and just moved right to Attleboro and just raised us, me and my sister.

RA: do you mind if I ask you what your parents do, just so I can get a sense of what your family background is like?

JD: no, not at all. My dad worked for the same company for 30 years. He just retired. He was a salesman - he worked for Nestle Candy. My mom did a bunch of stuff, like she's done.. . she worked in my elementary school when I was a little kid and then she wasn't working, and most recently she worked for a screen printing company. She's their customer service person, she takes in orders. They print on t-shirts, on coffee mugs, stuff like that. This summer my dad retired and he's become a totally new person. They bought bicycles and moved to South Kingston right on this river that comes through Narragansett Beach and the Pettaquamscutt River is what it's called. So they ride down to the beach every night and they have a canoe, and canoe on the ocean. They got out of suburbia and into the good life so I'm glad for them.

RA: So how did you end up in Providence, living here?

JD: I went to school here, I went to RISD. And I was there for 4 years and when I graduated I didn't think that I was...I was like, if I had to go somewhere, where would I go? My whole family's here. So it was really natural, and then I got sucked into this house, even before I graduated. I was already knowing that, oh, in July I'll start renting this place and I'll have this thing to do.

RA: what year did you graduate from RISD?

JD:2000

RA: if you want to talk a little bit more about how you got involved with living here, like you just started to do.

JD: weIl l can't even remember really. Well, Pippi [Zornoza] who lives here, we lived together for like 6 or 7 years, something like that. I met her when we were freshmen and stuff, and just lived together. We kind of like..it was like, whatever social scene, so we all had the same friends, and the person that I was dating while I was in college, my boyfriend in college, his name was Paul, he was living at Fort Thunder at Eagle Square. So, I kind of became familiar with those guys, I just kind of knew those guys for a couple years. When I was getting ready to graduate, Pippi had met Xander [Marro], and knew that she was kind of up to looking for a place to live, and Pippi was looking for a place to live, and I was looking for a place to live, and at the time I had only met Xander once. Because when I was at RISD I was in the Film and Animation Department, and one of the things I did was I organized this film series where I showed films made by women every other week. It was this series that I put together. And so, she saw one of the fliers and showed up one week, and she knew Paul and he was there, and so that's how we met. And then later I had met her through Movies with Live Soundtracks stuff, where I made a movie and showed it there. So we were still just kind of like acquaintances. Then Pippi was like, "well, you know, her and some other people found this building, and I think I'm going to just, like, do it cause I need a place to live, and I don't know what I'm going to do, I just know that I hate moving and l just want to find a place where I can do whatever." And I was like, "yeah, that's a good idea." And at the time I was just like, "I just want to live by myself!" And I had found a place and called the landlord and had been like, whatever. But anyway it was like this big struggle inside me for, like, what the fuck I was gonna do when I graduated. Because college for me was a very insular experience when I realized that I had no idea what I wanted to do. But the one thing I knew I wanted to do that my college education lacked, was to find these very positive and pro-active... basically like a female presence. Not even really so much as like role models, just anybody, like, where the fuck are the girls?! I know they're out there! It was like this secret society that just had to come together.

8:45

So when we all first got together it was me, and Pippi, and Xander, and Rachel Berube, and Cara Hyde, and Michelle Marchese. And I remember we got together in the basement of the Custom House, and we were thinking, we could do it, and this is how we could all do it, and we could rent it, and then buy it, and slowly things evolved and entered a new level. But really when I was graduating that was the one thing I knew. That, if this is where I am, this opportunity is presenting itself to me, and it was so strong. This is what I need. And I think when I was in school I was a really cynical, sarcastic, jaded youth kind of person. And now I'm just like, I think I've had a major shift into, everything's just about feelings! And find what you need to make you feel good inside! Cause, I don't know, I think it was a really big change to go from this thing that was very academic and institutional and all this stuff, to this other way of learning that was all self-directed and with a group of people you were all in it together. And it was all hands on. It was really different and that was what I needed. I needed to experience the direct opposite of what I had been given for 4 years.

RA: That's so awesome. Cara and Michelle are V for Vendetta, right?

JD: yeah, and P Squared.

10:32

RA: so it sounds like it was 6 or 7 of you?

JD: 6 of us

RA: And...what order here...

JD: I feel like I rambled a little bit there...

RA: no! it was great. It was wonderful. Rambling is great.

JD: I'll probably ramble a lot.

RA: good.

11:06

RA: Ok. I have 2 sort of broad questions. One is, and you can sort of tackle them in whatever order you feel like makes the most sense to you, one, if you want to just sort of describe what the Dirt Palace is, both in terms of the space, and what it does or what happens here. And also, and I don't know if you'd have to answer this other one first in order to get to that, in terms of its origins, I know that there was a progression from the Hive to the Dirt Palace. And I'm not asking you to necessarily talk about personal politics or whatever happened with that progression, but in terms of... what happened that you went from the Hive to the Dirt Palace. And I don't know if you feel like there's a marked difference in between them or any of that stuff.

12:05

JD: Well, when the Hive began, there were these 6 of us, and we were going to rent this building, we were going to have a lease-to-own option to buy the building, so part of that was we would spend...that option ran out in 18 months. So we basically had 18 months in which to figure out how to buy this building. So the plan was to fix it up and move in, and in the first level create these shared facilities for art making. We would have a sewing room, a print making room, a music room, which would hopefully have recording equipment, and a show space which would be used for music shows, puppet shows, community meetings, teach ins, workshops, and these are all things that we've had. And, you know, opening it up to other organizations that want to use it for whatever, whether it be for their own classes or whatever meetings they need to have happen. And all that stuff has happened too. And those were all the ideas.

13:27

And on a much larger scale, they extended to like, people would...and at the center of it all would be this idea that we're encouraging this...we're this women focused and women run space for art making and we're encouraging these cultural production happenings, and we would be able to build up that community of women artists that was already here and we knew existed, and also document it in a library archive kind of setting, and keep track of our own history. And so that was the larger idea, which I still think is like, the best idea anyone ever had!

14:30

And so, figuring out that that was the larger idea was one thing, and figuring out how to make that happen was another thing. So we figured out that we were going to start a non-profit, which was called the Hive Archive. And we worked to incorporate ourselves on a state level and on a federal level and get our 501 status that first whole year. Meanwhile, we were working to renovate this place. So the first summer of 2000 was when we were renting here and we spent the first summer every day we were in here. And if you can imagine, all these windows didn't have any glass. We refinished this whole second level's wood floors. We put in all the electricity, all the plumbing, and built all these walls. And we would get together and get videos out of the library and sit around in the morning and we'd watch them and then we'd be like, alright, let's fuckin' do this, who cares, we'll just figure it out as we go along. Which was like, at the center of all that was that really empowering feeling that you're doing something that's like the whole DIY ethic of why this matters. And we really did it with nothing. We did it with no money at all. I think in the two and a half years that we've been here, I can honestly say that we haven't spent more than 3000 dollars fixing this place up. Which is kind of mind blowing. I mean, we did a little scavenging and a bit of like, stealing, from those who had things that weren't being used. We had a lot of friends who were being kicked out of their spaces and they were like, "corne take my hot water heater, cause I paid 50 bucks for it, and like, I want someone to have it." Things like that. And so, there was that sense that as we were trying to get settled in here there were all these people out in the world who were really loosing the lives they had built. Like when the Fort [Thunder] was going through that whole thing last year it was like, watching people you know lose this giant thing that they built and loved and it really wasn't fair. So as a backdrop to that, as a backdrop to everything I was experiencing, there was this flipside, like, the person I loved more than anything else in the world was going to lose his house. And the people I had become friends with were going to lose their house. It was pretty awful. And so.. . anyway, the evolution of that non-profit just became, basically it just became a lot of work. So much work that nobody could imagine trying to build that thing, in the sense that, nobody could have imagined what it would take. And then once you realize what it's going to take, you have to think, "ok, now, there's this 18 month time line that's been imposed on us. And we have to have all our shit together by 18 months. That's totally never going to happen!" And so, there was this kind of air of impossibility to everything. And then, within that whole structure of what a non-profit organization is, you have to have a board of directors, you have to get all that stuff together, and then they become really the ones that have to make all the decisions for your organization. And in that sense we had this board of directors that was full of amazing people, but when you thought about it, I'm living here, I'm doing all this work, this is my life, but then there's going to be this external body of people that's going to make decisions about all of that stuff that I do? And that doesn't make any sense. And then when we thought about the purchasing of the building, there was the flipside of doing it the way, like AS220 is a non-profit, and the way that building is owned, and all those people who live there pay rent to AS220 the non-profit. And that was kind of the same structure we were looking to imitate. And from there it was kind of like, ok, well, do we really want a non-profit to own this place? And then possibly...who knows what's going to happen? It was just kind of like... where do you look? And it was so hard to draw that line between where your life ended and this non-profit began.

19:58

And so it was really overwhelming and confusing. And everybody was pretty much burnt out. Because we were all doing this thing together, there were issues of who's committed enough. So there were commitment issues, there were money issues, there were politics issues, there were personality issues, and they all kind of came to a head at this moment obviously when everybody was also reall y tired.

RA: was this also when the 18 month deadline was approaching?

JD: No, this was probably about a year later, about 12 months into it, 13 months. So we've got about 5 months left counting down, to figure out, and with 5 months left to go everything pretty much explodes.

RA: sorry, what year was this?

JD: this was last year, 2001. So everything kind of blows up in our face. And we're just kind of like, we got to figure this out, because everybody's invested a lot into this project and we all don't want to walk away with not only our pain but whatever other losses we thought we had, whether it was money or pride or whatever. Cause like everybody felt that, and everybody felt they lost a great deal when that happened. Basically what happened was Cara [Hyde] and Michelle [Marchese] were not going to be part of the project and so, we had to decide what would happen to the project itself. And they really wanted to have a non-profit that would do all these things. And there were some of us that felt like having full time jobs, and trying to be an artist and trying to build not only a home in which you had your own four walls to live in, but a place for you to make your art and people to do that with and get along really well, that that was hard enough. And that imposing this non-profit structure which obligated you to this larger structure and this larger group of ideas was too soon. It wasn't that we didn't want it but that it was too fast and too soon. And that when you really thought about the wisest way to purchase this property, to have a nonprofit purchase it, kind of in reality wouldn't even happen. The non-profit, it didn't have any money, it didn't have any background, it wasn't able to go to a bank and get a mortgage. And with five months to go, it was just like, reality was kind of like, if you formed a regular for profit corporation, where it's a sole-proprietor, a partnership, or what we eventually did, what's called a limited-liability corporation, that you being like actual people with credit histories have more of an actual chance of getting the loan to purchase this building than this thing that has only existed for like a year. So that's kind of what ended up happening.

23:44

And as people who had worked together really intensely for a very long time and who weren't getting along, and whose priorities in life basically changed, we weren't able to step back and make those decisions about...we knew what we wanted to do, but we couldn't as a group come up with what was fair for everybody, because everyone had so much personal interest at stake. And so we found someone who was a professional mediator, and everyone wrote her their own perspective. And we all gave her.. .this is a woman we had never met...I remember her name is Tracy Dodenhoff (sp?). And I was the person in charge of communicating with her. And she would tell me what she needed from us and I would tell everybody, ok, this is what you need to write. Tell your, if you want to, tell your side of the story, tell what you feel like should happen, and tell what you personally want to happen. And everybody did that and sent this writing into this woman, and she came back a couple weeks later with this email that was like, you should do this, this, this and this. And those things were, Cara and Michelle would have control of the nonprofit organization, and myself, Pippi and Xander and Rachel would be here...actually, I don't think Rachel was here, I think she had moved out by that time, so it was just us 5 and so, myself and Pippi and Xander would live here and figure out what to do with this place. And at that time we had all said it would be best if it was bought as an LLC and so she recommended that's what we do. And there was all this talk of, maybe we could buy it and the non-profit could rent out the first floor. And she was like, no, that's not going to work, because you're people and you're not getting along, and it's fine to recognize that and everybody just has to move on with what they need to do cause everybody should be happy. And a lot of people were like, you can't even make decisions for yourself, bluh bluh bluh, but other people were like, oh, that's a very smart and grown-up thing to do to realize you can't make those decisions about this thing and to go to a 3M party completely. So that's what we did. From there.. .so now the Hive Archive is a non-profit, and they... and part of the other thing I totally forgot to mention and I don't know how I did, was that, about...in late 2000, we wrote this grant, which was a Community Development Block Grant [CDBG], which was a grant to help us buy this building as a non profit, and we were awarded some of what we asked for, which was enough for a down payment, which was $45,000. And when the Hive Archive nonprofit left this building, it took its $45,000 with it. So the Hive Archive still has that Community Development Block Grant money. They still have the same board of directors and I know they're still looking for a place to buy a building and use that money.

28:06

So, with all that happening, we had just a couple months and all this pressure to figure out what to do. So what we did was we formed an LLC and did things the same way Monohasset [the Monohasset Mills] has. We went to the city and said, just like before, we wrote you this grant and we're still the same people who were involved in that project and we're not the same people anymore but we're still interested in continuing out the mission of that project in this space but with a different structure. And we're coming to you because like Monohasset, you've set aside money for artists to purchase these buildings. And we want to do that. And kind of had all these fantastic reasons why having artists in your community is beneficial for everybody. That's kind of where that came from. Applying for a loan through the city, which we did get, so now our mortgage is paid to the city. A couple months ago, the deal was closed, which was like 9 months after our deadline, or something crazy like that, and our landlord, was like, no, it's ok. And the main huge risk of this place was that we were putting in all our time and money and energy to fix it up, and the price of the building was $140,000 and what happened after 18 months after that lease running up was that our landlord could change the price of that building, and basically charge us for all our own work. He could be lik~, well, wow, 18 months ago this place was worth 140, but now that you've fixed it up it's worth 340,000. And we would basically be paying for everything we did ourselves. So it was like buy it or get screwed. And we knew that he would screw us cause he's kind of a shady guy. So that was the big ultimate risk. And this is like the date, always knowing, this is the date when it could all go away. But by the time that date rolled around he had a letter in his hands from the city that said, this is what's happening, it's just a matter of paper work and time, so, they are going to buy it, so sit tight. So that's what happened. At that point there wasn't even a Dirt Palace. There were issues over who was the Hive. There were all these issues with the name, and the mediator settled that by saying, the Hive is a nonprofit and it's leaving. And that was a hard thing for people on the outside to get. And meanwhile we were just like people here. And then there was a long period of time when we would sit around the kitchen table and come up with names and couldn't think of anything. Nothing fit. And it was like, it should be a name that like, describes who we are and blah blah blah, but who are we?! We don't even know yet. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't have any idea. And so this list was like 8 pages long of names. And Robin [Nanny], who use to live, just moved out like a week ago, you know, she was always like the one to take control at the moment when it seemed like nothing was going to happen, she totally takes control and is like, let's just do it! She just took this list and came up with some crazy system of how to narrow down the name. Then it came down to like 5 names and some of the names got rearranged. And one night someone was like, Dirt Palace! And everyone was like, fine, I don't care! And that's how it came about because we were just so frustrated. We were like, whatever.

RA: What's Robin's last name?

JD: Robin Nanny.

32:58

And from there the challenge was just sort oflike...and at that point we had been living in this building for just like a year and a half and we didn't even have bedrooms. We had just gotten hot water that summer, summer of 2001. It was really slow going. There were a lot of personal needs, like comforts that we really take for granted that had to be looked at. Like having a private place to sleep. We all used to camp out in the same big room and everybody became desensitized to everyone's noises, like, whatever, it's temporary and we just have to deal with it. So that was kind of the first main priority, was getting everybody personally settled. Then also, some new people came in, Erin Rosenthal and Phoebe Lopes moved in. and so then getting those guys adjusted and making them part of everything was a big priority too. And so now, I feel like the Dirt Palace, whatever it became, or whatever it is, to me, it's extremely close to the original intent and why I wanted to do this in the first place. And I know for other people to hear that is a point of contention, like, no it's not! You said you were going to do this, this and this. And I don't know exactly how I would answer that except I feel a little older and wiser now, and I know that to proclaim the grand things you're going to do to change the world when you're not really ready to, you're just kind of...everybody had a tiny little case ofI-Want-To-Do-TooMuch Disease. I just know my limits and I know what I'm able to do. And it's kind of a pick and choose your battle type of thing. I think starting from just realizing that a group of women owning and managing property together is in and of itself a radical thing. And everybody will tell you here, who else does that? It doesn't happen very often. The fact that the city itself recognizes that that's an important thing. And that they helped make that happen somehow, that in and of itself is kind of like an amazing thing. And there's just kind of like this feeling I have that two and a half years has gone by so fast, that it's like.. .and I know we've accomplished a lot, but I still feel like it's totally just the tip of the iceberg. So it's totally about learning some kind of balance about what we as a group want to get done and what myself as a person needs to get done or needs to have to be happy.

37:20

But I think if everybody here wasn't on that page, if you can imagine the mindset of, this is what we need to get done, but not that part about your personal needs, that was what the first year was kind of about. It was like this mad race, it just drove everybody a little bit crazy. And none of us, we weren't even close friends. I didn't know, like I said, I didn't know Xander very well, I didn't know Rachel, Cara, and Michelle at all. I only knew them in this context. This was all we had to talk about, and we didn't give ourselves time to talk about anything else. Like I know that after a year Rachel and I went on this road trip together and I know that was the first time I felt like I had a conversation with her about anything. And it just all came out. We drove to Chicago and the whole time we were like, "We're so unhappy! Why are we doing this? People fight, we don't know what we're doing, what's going on?" and it was just crazy but it felt so good. Totally relieving to know that otherpeople...and all of us felt like we couldn't let each other see that feeling in each other, we couldn't let each other see that we were a little bit overwhelmed because the morale had to be kind of kept up in order to keep things going. It was kind of crazy. I don't know. Is that a good answer?

RA: absolutely.

39:20

JD: The last thing I'll say is like another big thing of the Hive Archive leaving this space was this huge backlash against whatever this place was left being which was so vague. We didn't know. And at the same time we didn't know what we were doing, all these people were demanding from us, tell us what you are now! Cause obviously you're not the feminists anymore. You know what I mean? There was this big backlash... which was totally deserved I think. I think it was totally deserved. I think that when you set out to do something and you change your mind, which you're allowed to do I believe, you have to say to people, this is how I feel, this is what's going on. And it's all about good communication. And so I think we were able to say to people, everything's in transition right now. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know. We're not going to be a non-profit anymore. We're going to stay in this space, we're going to try to buy it. And you know, we'll get back to you when that happens and if it does. And so we kind of hid out for a really long time. And then we kind of came back with a little bit more public presence. Just inviting people back to different things.

RA: there's a poster that's still in the stairwell at List Art which is the art building at Brown, which I think is something that Xander did, cause it looks like her big-eyed women. And it says, like...it's like these cartoon characters talking and it says like, "Hey, I hear that there's something going on this weekend at this place that used to be this other place but now it's this place called the Dirt Palace."

JD: Yeah, that was the first show we did as the Dirt Palace. It was like a puppet show. I remember sitting around and being like, yeah, you should put this on the poster. And that's like what happened. The main reason when I say, people said this and people said that is like we had this list-serve email thing, which I feel like I hate. I hate it in the sense that it was this forum for people, could say this stuff, and we would take it the wrong way and we would respond and they would take it the wrong way and like, no matter who said what on this stupid email thing you could never really hear a person saying it. You couldn't look into their eyes and be able to say, "look! I know this sucks too! I'm right with you!" And that can never be expressed through a computer. It just kind of sucked that that was our forum for dealing with people who had supported us. At the same time we were all so overwhelmed and going through so much that we couldn't take the time to gather all the people who supported us and be like, I'm sorry, who knows what's going on cause we ourselves don't know what was going on. And that lasted for maybe 4 months, 4 or 5 months of just like trying to figure out what would happen to everybody and at the same time trying to figure out what would happen to this building and all the stuff we put into it. So last year was like sucky time. But then it was like a fog that lifted that came away. And with that lifting was us trying to figure out what to do. And like how to exist with them doing what they want to do. And as it is now we exist totally separate. I'm so not informed about what they're trying to do or even who's involved with that project right now. They've kind of had a quiet time lately, and I think they're planning do to some stuff, but I actually secretly try really hard to find out if they're doing ok and what they want to do. Cause it's really like this huge part of my life and I'm not trying to deny that it was this really gigantic part of my life, and that I want to see it survive. But also to realize that for me personally to put work into it may not be the best thing for me or for it.

RA: so it's still important for you to see that the people involved with the Hive Archive and that project have some kind of longevity?

JD: Yeah, majorly important. If it's something that...I mean, I feel like the reason that it came about and the reason it existed after we all split up was that there was a ground swell of need, of people who needed something in their life like that. And so if there are those people still out there, which I think there are, I like really want it to happen. I don't know. But it's like a weird feeling knowing you're probably not welcome to make it happen.

RA: do you feel like you're not welcome?

JD: not so much, but, you know, just kind of like, that's vague. I don't even know. I mean, I know that I already work for 2 non-profits. And I already have these personal experiences with how I feel about non-profits and how I feel they need to be run to be successful for the community they serve. And I know that I'm not, I know that a year ago I had to step back and be like, ok it's now or never. You make this non-profit happen or you make your own life happen. Live someplace and have hot water and have a bedroom and go to your job and you try to make your art. And I felt like those were really my two choices. And there was one week in my life when everything turned upside down. Just really had to make that decision because that's really what it takes. People who make that decision, like someone like Bert Crenca who make AS220 incredibly successful, for everyone involved it's a worth while place, but he's sacrificed, not sacrificed, but given so much. Like he lives and breathes that place, and when we started this project we met with him and he basically told us that. He looked at all of us and he told us, "you have this idea and everyday you wake up you're going to live it and breathe it and eat it and poop it out." And he totally said that to us. And we were like, yeah yeah yeah, we're all going to do that, whatever. We'll do it. We all know we're going to do that. But like, when you've got 6 people with different ideas about what they're going to do in life, and different realities, everybody's coming from someplace different, it's really hard for everybody to be on the same page of that level of we need to be on that same level of commitment to make this thing succeed. And when you're all working together you kinda, you want to see that everybody is at that level. But I really don't think..J don't think that it's impossible for a group of people to do something like that, but I think that we were all at different places in our lives and like me personally, I was out of school and like I was like what am I gonna do? And so everybody.. . people change, and what you want changes. And I think it's a good thing to realize that. And sometimes it just hurts a lot.

RA: ok, just so I'm clear, you guys do own the building now and you have a mortgage that you pay to the city? [JD: yeah] And so you pay a monthly mortgage that you all sort of combine together and pay them.

JD: it's like rent. And our rent includes the mortgage, the water bill, the taxes on the building and stuff like that.

RA: so how much do you each end up paying a month?

JD: 300 dollars

RA: that's, like, nothing.

ID: yeah. If there's seven of us. And that was always the goal, always the goal was to make this place affordable to live and work in. And the idea to have this place that's sustainable because you own it, and in that sense you're permanent, you're like a fixture in your neighborhood. In a neighborhood like this that's really economically unstable, property ownership is a really positive thing. You know, property ownership where the owner lives in the property is the best thing for this place in the sense that, everyone here is a recent immigrant and they rent from people who don't live around here, and those people don't care about the houses or the people that live in them. And that's the reality. In another sense, this building was totally, basically, abandoned when we came across it. And it was in totally shitty shape.

50:10

This is the old Olneyville Free Library, this was the old library of Olneyville Square. It's a totally epic concept, that I live in a library and work here and we're going to have our own little library and stuff like that. It was really cosmic how it all came together. And it's such a central location that it's perfect. To think about the fact that someday it'll be...we don't have an occupancy permit right now, so we still live here illegally because we don't have an occupancy permit. But the idea is someday that like, it'll be legal for people to live here, legal for people to assemble downstairs, and have things happen, and it'll be sustainable because it'll be legitimate. Which is a lesson...I think that like, you know, it was a goal established because, the lesson of Eagle Square was seeing all these people who had built their lives in this place, and a really thriving community, the small business people and the artists and the flea market and all this stuff happening, and just being able to take it away so quickly. So quickly. And have that whole community, plus, a larger general public outcry over the whole situation of the fact that, you're gonna tear down these buildings that are over 100 years old and are basically like a huge part of our whole country's industrial heritage, and you're just going to wipe them out. It's kind of just like... that was the lesson. The lesson was, you don't...spaces like this, they need a little love. They need someone to be like, I'm going to take care of you forever. I feel like that sentiment doesn't happen so much because our culture is so fast and everyone is so transient and it's just not a concept you hear a lot of people say. You know, there's this wasted space, it's a good idea to go occupy it and transform it and make it into something positive and thriving. No one voices that sentiment anymore I feel like. It's like, oh I bought this land with this great view and I'm gonna throw up this crappy plywood house. You know?

RA: more new new new new

JD: yeah. And people can do that. I don't know. So I can't ever imagine.. .1 always want to live someplace that feels old. Even this neighborhood walking around, everything's brick, centered around the fact that this river was the life force, and now, like 100 years ago when people realized, kind of made...they definitely didn't take good care of the river so now we have to fix the river too.

RA: can I take a 5 minute bathroom break? Is that ok? I just have to pee really badly

JD: totally

***************

54:04

JD: people ask me these questions everyday and I'm always trying to make sure I don't leave things out cause I think it's important for all sides...Iike that's the cool thing about your project cause you're going to talk to Xander and she's going to say totally different stuff.

RA: Yeah, I'd like to talk to Cara and Michelle also, but I haven't gotten in touch with them.

JD: yeah, and they're going to say totally different stuff.

RA: yeah. Do you know Yve-tte? Yvette Cook? I don't know her that well but someone told me that she was involved with the Hive at one time. I guess she lives at the Bakery now. I don't know. There's a lot of people to talk to. I was also thinking it would be cool to go find the woman who was your mediator and interview her. And go find the people at the city and ask them why they thought it was important to be supportive of this project.

JD: I can tell you John Ozbek is the guy [RA: the guy at the city?] yeah. He was like our guardian angel. He's the guardian angel of a lot of people. [RA: he would be cool to talk to] yeah he's really awesome.

RA: cool. Well, um. If you could now, I'm sort of curious if you want to talk about some of the stuff that goes on here now. Some of the projects or shows or whatever, and then later I'll ask you about whatever you're working on personally, your own sort of art interests and whatever, stuff like that. And also I have some questions about the community and stuff. But if you want to start with...yeah, just, what kind of stuff goes on here now? What are people doing here?

55:49

JD: so now there's 7 people who live here, or there should be at any given time. Right now there's 5 of us and one of us, my room mate Erin, she's in Poland cause she has this big film project she's been working on for over a year, and she's gone back to Poland to try and focus on that project. Cause when she moved in here she kind of got sucked in to the same things. The creature comforts and having a room with 4 walls and everything. And so, ok. There's 7 people and every week we get together and we kind of have a ...wejust call it a house meeting. We have a house meeting every week. We all get together and we address things and we kind of go over the same subjects every week. Which, you know, those subjects can change, but originally that style meeting was adopted from another collective we visited and saw how they held meetings [RA: what collective?] Collective-A-Go-Go, in Worcester. And they go around and everybody who has agenda items puts them on this list and then you go through. And then we talk about larger stuff coming up like the rock shows, and things that aren't really rock shows but are still events. And we talk about things happening in the neighborhood. There's just all this different stuff. So. In the evolution of the Dirt Palace, what ended up happening is, so there are 7 people who live here and we share a kitchen, and we're working on finishing up this library right outside, which is going to be like it's own little room and is going to have fiction and non-fiction and zines and magazines and old books and encyclopedias and everything. And that's really close. There's just a lot of books that need to get put on the shelves and organized. There are other ideas that are incorporated into that, like documenting a history of this place and ourselves as women artists and other women artists, and artists in general. And also to invite people into that process by giving people their own shelf in the library and having them...this is Robin's shelf and this is what she likes, these are her favorite books and you can come visit them here. So the kitchen and the library and the living spaces are all on the 2nd floor. And on the first floor we have a print making studio, a music room, and what will someday be a functional sewing room. And we have a show space which has functioned and still functions as more than that. In the past year we worked with English for Action

[RA: Adrianna (Young)]

yeah, to have language classes here where we gave one of the EFA learners the chance to teach her native language. And at the same time she, it was this amazing time to have a convergence of different types of people come together and learn in this place. So that was really amazing. So recently those classes just moved to the East Side because it's more convenient for the teacher, or there's another woman teaching those classes now and it's more convenient for her to be on the East Side. But just to realize that we have this really good asset, which is this space downstairs and we can try to use it for as many things as we can. And work with as many different people in this neighborhood who are trying to do things as possible. So corning up we have bands play here, we have puppet shows, we have movie shows, we've had teach-ins, coming up we have an all women's self-defense class. And also coming up we're going to try to, we did this thing in Eagle Square called the Olneyville County Fair which was a craft fair and more kind of thing, so we're going to try and do that again the weekend right before Christmas where all our friends can corne and set up a table and sell whatever they want to sell. And we'll have games, prizes, a raffle. Last night I was talking to the Recycle-A-Bike kids about raffling bikes and things like that. So, just try to get everybody together to do that. But mainly we're just really open to anything but we're also realizing it's good to have a critical edge to what you, and more of a curatorial say to what goes on. Because just to let everybody who wanted to do things here do it would really overwhelm us, so we try to keep it to 2 events per month. That's manageable. That means our house doesn't get turned upside down every weekend with whoever coming through the door. So that's how that type of thing works. Our studios, are kind of like half way, I mean, they're there, and you can use them, but they're definitely not like as functional and nice as I want them to be. So we have plans to do a lot of work downstairs since not a lot of work has been done down there. Like put a new floor in and do stuff like that and put new lights in and make them like really nice studios. And you know, any time anyone asks can I come, the printmaking stuff is the most accessible thing that other people might need to use, so people have corne here to print, people have come here to use the exposure table that we have. If anybody asks I'm just like, yeah, I'll show you what to do. So people do come from outside to use that stuff, but it's really hard because that's all our personal stuff down there, and you want to be able to share it but you also want to be able to make sure it's in good working condition for you yourself to use. And so that's like a fine line. Which was another paradox of building the Hive cause it was all our stuff. Cause you might have a four track, but are you, but what happens if someone comes in to use the four track and they break it? Then you have to figure out how to fix it. I mean, those were all issues we didn't even get to deal with. [music interruption] That's Xander. I'll have to tell her to stop. Hold on.

(gets up)

this is the one wall that we didn't build ourselves, so it's really transparent.

(to Xander)

Hey dude! (...) It's not like you don't listen to her everyday! I'm kidding.

(to me)

Is that better?

RA: I can still hear it but it's better. It doesn't matter.

JD: she really likes Mary Anne Faithful

RA: (laughs) cool

JD: ok so what was I talking about?

[RA: stuff that goes on here]

I think that's about it. Oh wait there's another thing. We have a store front window down stairs

[RA: yeah, I noticed that]

that we kind of walled off to make this public gallery show space kind of thing, so every month we have a different person put their art up or put an installation up or whatever. Or sometimes we take it over for a coupel of days at a time in order to put something up ourselves. Like we did a... when the primary elections were coming around, Xander did this whole thing where she put up a big, she made a little voter registration booth kind of thing, and people could come around, could come register to vote, and there was a big sign that said that in English and Spanish. So, and I think we might have registered only like 12 people or something, but I don't know. It was up for a couple days.

RA: that leads well into another question I have about the way that the Dirt Palace and places like the Dirt Palace seem to be sort of rooted in several different communities and that seems to be pretty integral to what the place is about. And it seems to have led to some interesting collaborations. Like I really associate Xander and puppetry and shows with the [Jeff] Toste for City Council campaign. [JD: yeah]

so I wanted to ask I guess

[JD: how that all happens?]

no...well, yes. Yes. How that all happens but also is this something conscious? Do you guys feel like you're rooted in these communities, do you feel like this is really integral to what you're doing? And it kind of has to be that way? Whether it be like, Olneyville, or young artists, or Providence or whatever.

68:00

JD: yeah. I think that it's... it's hard because when we were a non-profit we all had to answer that question as yes. Yes we're all about community. I think that like, people have lived here and been part of whatever, the Dirt Palace, and have felt no, like, that they had to go organize an event for someone who's running for City Council. That's just not on the wavelength. But they've been totally politically conscious and totally neighborhood involved and things like that. But I think that like, myself and Xander and ... I could totally answer for her, I don't know why. But I'll just answer for myself. For me as like an artist and like who I am and my political consciousness is...that consciousness is totally rooted in the place that I live, especially in the sense that I'm from this area and I went to school around here, and when I was in school I was with, you know...a lot of...when I left school, when I graduated, it was really, realizing this is my home, in that like, that's a big deal, in participating in the way our neighborhood grows and changes, I think. For myself. I'm not answering this question good. I'm trying to think the right way to answer it. But like you said, I think that everyone who lives here does cross these lines of all these different communities. Like, there's the kids that come to the shows here, there's the bands that come to play here, there's the puppeteers that corne to do puppet shows here, there's the non-profits who come have their classes here. So there's all these different places that everybody jumps around to. There's...the two jobs I have are both with non-profits that work with kids, so there's time. ..so there's a lot of different things we all care about, each one of us cares about. So..I think in this project there's a lot of different people who have supported us and because they've supported us we've supported them and vice versa, cause we've supported them, they've supported us. And I think it's a really larger feeling of that's what makes a neighborhood, is people who support each other. And that's a really good feeling when you know that that's neighborhood's going to be your home. And that's just so basic to me. Like if you live in the Armory, in Prospect St., I don't know why there would be a difference, but I know in areas like this it's that much more important for people to feel that way because of the economic and social realities of the place. And I think that this neighborhood is in particular, when we got here... you noticed I changed what I was going to say. I think it was like the forgotten land. It was like no man's land. Nobody looked at it and how to make it better except the Greenway Project and Jocelyn Community Center, Nickerson Community Center, doing stuff like that. And case in point was they're willing to tear everything down and believe that a strip mall was going to be better for everybody. And I think that that's changed. And I think that we've had a part in how that's changed, and so has Monohasset, and so has just a general influx of people to the west side in general. And so has like, an influx of people from other cities in general to Providence, looking for affordable places to live and coming to this side of town. So I don't know. You can say that, who knows where all that's going to lead, but I had a conversation with someone the other day, and gentrification is like everybody's big fear. And you know...I think that before I worry about that happening in my neighborhood, I first have worry about not looking out the window and seeing prostitutes in Olneyville Square and see guys out here doing drugs and whatever. There are like, real problems. The two neighborhoods, I work in South Providence and I live here in Olneyville. And I think they're both places with problems, like any other place, but that this amazing pool of people who are totally working to make things better, and not that they're bad, but just realizing that they could be better, and that grass-roots methodology of everybody working together is the way to go. South Providence is really amazing for that reason.

RA: I'm gonna ask you to pause cause there's only 15 seconds left on this tape.

Jo Dery Interview

DISC 20f2 Track 1

RA: ok so, do you need a prompt again?

(traffic noise)

JD: I don't know what I had left to say about that except at this point everybody's politics are their own, and what they feel like they of their own time and energy have to give. Whether it's you know, someone running for office or some neighborhood organization, it's really personal, and no one's saying to anybody else, come on out to this thing because we all have to do it. It should be fun and it should be positive and it shouldn't be a drag on your life. And so, yesterday we were all at the Olneyville Fall Festival, like me and Polina [Malikin] and Xander. Cause we had time and we wanted to do it. And so we did this mask making project with little kids. And it totally killed all of us. We were totally tired at the end of the day but it was really fun. It was so much fun. That was like the second or third time we've done it I forget, and every time it's been really fun. You get to hang out with kids and so that crosses that line of, I'm a person who really like that and is willing to do that whenever. I don't know. It's all like...you know, everybody's just in it to support one another.

RA: It seems like, even if it isn't a mission statement, like, this is what we do, you all care about the community that you live in and you want to see good things happen to it. And you use what resources you have available to you to make that happen in whatever way you can.

JD: yeah. Exactly. It's ceased being like a mission statement and started being on some level a shared consciousness. And it's a dialogue. How you talk to your community. How you interact with your neighborhood. And it can be going out to the fall festival or it could be putting up an artist's work in the window. I feel like I've had just as many interactions on the street with people where I leave the house and I find a woman just standing there smiling looking at the work in the window. And I just go over and we start talking and it's a really cool way to interact with people. Or a way to interact with people who drive by here every day and they get to see this thing that changes and get to know that something's happening. Even in the sense that people are like, what's going on in there? People who have no idea what's going on. But it's like, I don't feel any pressure to let the whole world know just yet what's going on because, there are realities of the situation, like we can't let people know we live here, but I don' know.

RA: do you feel like that stops you from doing things you otherwise would like to do?

JD: sometimes yeah.

RA: like what?

JD: I mean there are definitely times when we've had trouble. We have one neighbor who doesn't like us very much and there are times when we've had conflicts with him. And we've just laid low for a while. Because he could pick up a phone and call someone to corne over here or whatever. I mean, I don't know what he would do, but sometimes you just have to like, worry, that you've gotten to a point of sustaining whatever it is that you're doing and you don't want it to be sabotaged.

RA: yeah, do you feel like the fact that you don't have a permit to live here is a big threat to you guys? Is that something you worry about or...?

JD: not like every day. I think it informs how you make decisions. You have to think about it. Like we're going to have this Olneyville County Fair thing, do we want to put our address on the flier? Because we know that's how in a big way Fort Thunder was found out because they had their address on things and people knew that this place was called Fort Thunder. And then they were easily a target because they were findable. We've had people want to write newspaper articles about us or include us in whatever they were writing and want to name us, and put an address down or a general location and we're like, no. And it's been like a...one time a reporter came to a puppet show here. And my roommate Pippi's boyfriend [Dan Saint Jaques of Vincebus Eruptum, Olneyville Sound System] came up to him and said like, giving him a hard time, but we don't want to have to use those tactics.

RA: yeah, I mean that was actually one of my questions in terms of publicity and how well known you want to be, and how much you want people in the general Providence or whatever or beyond to know about you guys. I know Xander was just in the Phoenix as one of Providence's 256 Most Influential People or something like that, and it just made me think about that in terms of how visible you want to be.

JD: yeah. You know like, personally, I think of this first and foremost as my home, and it's where I live with people I love, and it's where I make art. And after that it becomes a place where public events can kind of happen. And in that respect I want exciting things to go on because I know people who make exciting things and it's being able to showcase what we do and it's really exciting. That I think supports that energy. It promotes people to make stuff because we have this venue for people to come show what they do. So, urn, and that's a main level that I care about it on. And whether it's. ..1 want it to be really good stuff. I want it to be quality. I don't want it to be just, like... we try to do things we are all a little bit invested in because we all do give up our own time to make things happen here and things like that. So, in terms of publicity, we'll make a flier for a show but we won't put our address on it cause that's being careful about that issue. And we won't put our phone number on it or anything like that. But this town is so small that people kind of talk a lot and so it's pretty easy to find out, it's pretty easy to ask someone, what is this thing, what is it all about, what's happening? And maybe that's exclusive but it's the reality of what we're doing. And I don't, I don't feel like it's a priority for me to make sure that, I want the whole world know that this puppet show is happening tonight. We want people to corne because it encourages people to get paid to make their art, whether it's music or performance or whatever. And I think that I only realized how important that was after I left school and started doing this. I always went to music shows but I never realized how important it is that that scene is totally self-sustaining. Like people in bands go to see other bands. People who like music go to see music and people who have spaces like this go to other spaces like this to see music and whatever cause everybody's helping each other out. It's a good... it's not a like a...what's the word I'm looking for...it's like a good little ecosystem or something of it's own. It's like it's a good little self-supporting world of its own.

RA: So.. . you talked a little bit about this before, but I wanted to ask again specifically, about this being a space for women or a space that supports women. Maybe why that's important to you or why you feel like that's a good thing to have.

10:18

JD: yeah. Well I think, you know, we've.. .ok, I'm going to answer this one, I'm going to be personal in my answer. But urn. You know, it can go back to when I was a little kid. [RA: absolutely, whatever you want.] ok. ljust grew up as a major tom boy, and my name was Jo, and I had this little bowl cut and I was a little chubby kid, so I was never a girl in my own eyes. I was never a girl or.. .and I never really had.. .any desire for like.. .1 never really thought about role models at all until I got to college. I was just learning a lot and then some day I realized I was learning all this stuff and I was being taught all these things by all men, and they were all men who were kind of at the same place in their careers and what they were doing. And it just wasn't hitting any sort of nerve inside of me. And I have to say that maybe it was because of the fact that they were men and I was kind of for the first time feeling like I was a woman, and that was my thing. I was like, ok, I am. I don't know if that makes any sense. These are the things that are not so easy to talk about. But just like.. .and feeling like there was a difference and the main difference was, you're in school and you're learning all these things, and largely I was presented with this history that was largely male dominated. And you look at that as someone who really wants to be part of art making and you think, where am I? Where do I fit into all this? And where's the person that looks like me? And I think that's something that, whatever you think art is, for me, it's, besides this general impulse to make things because it makes me feel healthy and sane, besides just I have to make things, I have to be looking at the world around me and responding. And you look at that and the way you're being educated and you're like, that's not so much my world. You know? It's not so much the world I live in or have ever lived in, or maybe, I've lived in it too long and now I need to make my own world. And so at the moments when I was going through all that, was the moment when I realized that even being just the tiny bit proactive in changing that can do for yourself and for other people. So like I started doing that film series in school and I started meeting other people who were saying, yeah, my syllabus is filled with books by men and movies made by men and what's going on with that? Why can't we just open up the doors to all kinds of people who make stuff? And realize that those differences are really valuable and should be talked about and discussed. And so I met really awesome people at school and my teachers were really arnazing, but like I said, I was still really hungry for this thing that I never really felt I really had, which was this.. . some kind of. ..it's almost like the great role model descending from the sky, being like, and this is how to be a feminist and this is how to make art! But I mean those were the questions I had for myself, how do I be a feminist and how do I make art? And when I left school those were kind of the questions I was thinking about and asking myself. And at the same time I think I'm of the school of feminism that it's just an ism and it's just another ism to combat another ism, like sexism. And you know, so, I don't want to...I look at that as I don't want any kind of sexism to exist, whether it's male directed or female directed. There's no difference for me. Ijust don't want it at all. So. But also...to just recognize that I did have a desire to be around other girls who were interested in the same stuff as me, who wanted to learn how to play music, who wanted to learn whatever and make whatever, and encourage that. Cause that had never happened and I just wanted that. You know? Like I didn't feel like I had to justify it by putting a word feminism on it or whatever, I just wanted it. And maybe that's the really un-PC or un-intellectual way of looking at it, but it was just like, it sounds fun, it sounds like what I need. Cause I had spent so much of my childhood trying to be a boy, and trying to play football or trying to do whatever. You know, trying not to wear dresses. That it was finally time for me to find out what it means for me to be a girl. And like.. .not as like...it was never like an issue that was huge and central in my life that it was like this huge identity crisis, but it was definitely like, you know, something where I was like, not a, you know, Ijust felt a little crazy. Ready to be a lose cannon and see what happens. To let everything go and just be like, what happens. And so, that's when this whole project presented itself to me, and we were all at this different evolution of what we thought about feminism and then the whole, there were gender politics, sexual politics, all that stuff factored in. And everybody was at a different place. Rachel was 19, and she came out when she was 14. And Cara and Michelle were like, 26, or no, maybe Rachel was 20. You know. And they were older and they were dating each other [RA: who?] Cara and Michelle. And they still are dating each other. So for everybody. . . then for me and Xander and Pippi, being like, the straight girls, we had this whole thing where our feminism and their feminism, and it being centered around their sexual orientation, was different from ours, and we had to figure out how those two came together and in the places where they didn't come together trying to figure out if it was ok. That was just a whole other can of worms. And even for someone like Phoebe who doesn't, who lived here, and doesn't identify as a woman really. She has.. .she just started this campaign with her friend to make stickers for bathrooms, public restrooms for people who don't easily fit into a male identified look and a female identifies look. Some people just don't and they don't want to and they just are who they are and that's totally Phoebe. And so those are all different things like, what does feminism mean to her? Does it mean anything about being a woman? Cause she doesn't really feel like that's what she feels about herself. So the conversations that have been had about that have been really intense.

20:20

So personally, I think that this starting out as a women run space and a women focused space, was huge. Cause what does that mean? It means something different for everybody.

[RA: problematic from the very beginning]

Yeah. And so it means something different for everybody. And so when you ad in what it means for all of us made things even more complex, and you have to come up with some thing that's like the basis, telling people what you're all about, so that was always really challenging cause it was always really different for everybody. And then even the same thing now. It's still really different. But the fact that we are all girls, or, like, people who care about these issues, whether they're gender issues, feminist issues, we all kind of like, have found each other in this place, and have tried to make it...1 mean, I think at times it's been really hard to have those discussions and it hasn't felt like a safe space to have those discussions. Because especially when we were the Hive, tensions were already so worked up that you would have a discussion like that and it wouldn't even feel safe cause everyone was already so anxious. It was even hard to do that. But I think now what that means is, or what I want it to mean is, when we first started meeting together and talking about this project, I think my main thing that I felt was, that the mere fact that a place like this might exist is going to affect the way someone sees the world, you know? It's going to affect... and the mere existence of it's going to give someone the knowledge that they could make something like this exist and they too could do it. And that was, I remember that being the main thing that I felt when we started this. And if I was like, 16, and I saw a place like this, and I was who I was at 16, and all my friends were boys and they all played in a band together - I was totally excluded, they told me not to touch their stuff. I told them, I want to play drums! And so... it's different when your guy friends are like, yeah you can play drums. Don't touch my drums, but yeah you can play 'ern. It's just different than... I don't know. I think it's really positive to acknowledge that it's different and boys get acknowledged differently than girls. And I would like to think that this place and its existence is a way to encourage girls it can happen. And that there is a solidarity and a way to bring it all together. And I think the Hive Archive is another way to bring it all together. I think they're both ways to encourage that participation and replication. Like doing it again and see what happens.

RA: do you want to talk a little bit about your own art? I don't know if I've ever seen anything you've done, maybe I have and didn't know it was yours, but yeah. What you like to make.

JD: well, I went to school and I studied film, and towards the end I was really interested in animation, so I think that's what I've strived to work towards, is making another bigger project that's a film. And as of a month ago I know what that is. But I think I had to really allow myself to think that, to get this project to a state where making a film here is a possibility. And now I have my own camera, I have my own equipment...so realizing this place was a means to an end in that it's going to build up the resources I have in order for me to make my work and learn new things. Like I never did any print making before I lived here, I did silk screening and I did a bunch of silk screening stuff, and that's like posters for here. I've been paid to make posters and that's been really good. Someone just hired me to make t-shirts for them. And so that's been a really good source of extra money. The other thing is I do a lot of, I draw in books all the time. Like I draw books. I draw.. .1 have a sketch book but I also make little comics and little silk screen books and other things like that.

RA: do you just want to sort of describe what this looks like?

JD: that thing? This is my latest. My friend Jen Corace, she has this book, she took the cover of an O. Henry novel and put her own sketch book inside and I totally stole her idea and did the same thing. And so I put all my new pages inside and use it as my sketchbook.

RA: and what's the title called?

27:05

JD: the title is "A World of Girls." Which, I found this at the flea market and I got some more today. And one of those is called 'The Day the World Ended." So that's another volume I'll have. So yeah, sketchbooks. But I feel like sketchbooks are my biggest outlet for everything. But I draw a lot and I've been doing really small film projects. I've done a handful of movies with live soundtracks projects. Did you get to go to the last one?

RA: I did. At the Cable Car? Which one...

JD: did you see the end thing? The one with the crane knocking down the thing?

RA: you know, I left after Polina's, so I didn't get to see the last couple ones.

JD: mine was very last. Xander made me go last.

RA: ohhh. I was just so exhausted.

JD: recently all summer I was doing this stuff, like drawn on film work and chemicals, like bleach onto film, but I don't' want to do that anymore. I'm tired of it. But it was really good cause it got me back into handling film as a material and how to use it. Like I silk-screened onto film, all that green stuff? And just started getting back into doing wacky things with it.

RA: what does silk-screening onto film do?

JD: what does it look like?

RA: yeah, what does it look like?

JD: it's an abstract pattern that I silkscreened on there, but it just looks like kind of, you have to make the silkscreen ink transparent and then, I mean the colors can be really pretty. And sometimes because the mesh of the screen can be really, is so small, and then you put it on the tiny film frame and then make it huge projected, you can see the mesh and it looks really cool. RA: like the grid? ID: yeah. But it doesn't really stick onto the film and so it's bad for projectors. But the job that I have right now after school, the City Arts Program

[RA: oh! The City Arts Program]

yeah. I teach there after school and I'm part of this cooperative program that they have where they give 4 artists these studios to share, and I'm one of them. So I have my own studio, so I'm making this series of pictures that are kind of like that but there's more of them. And recently a month ago I came up with this idea for a movie that I'm going to slowly figure out and try and get some money. I think that's like the main thing. Money.

RA: do you want to talk about that project, like what that is?

JD: yeah. It's definitely a portrait of a place loosely based on OlneyvilIe in that it's a portrait of this place in transition and a place where kind of industry and culture have moved on and almost have abandoned it. And it also has a lot to do with... a little side thought in the film is this idea that if you left any place alone for like 50 years a forest would start to grow there no matter what asphalt was poured on top of it. And a lot of the empty lots around here kind of have these plants growing up through the asphalt and stuff like that and it's kind of ...[RA: sorry I'm just pointing at that book on your table] the ancient plants? Yeah. Part of the beginning of the movie's going to have a lot of fossilized plant life that's going to exist in this landscape of concrete and brick and all that concrete and brick stuff is going to be photographed from OlneyvilIe. I've already been shooting film of smokestacks and things like that. And mixed in with that are going to be these rock life things that exist around it. And I think there's going to be a human character that the river's going to be a big part of it. Cause one day me an Xander did this river clean up with the Woonasquatucket [RA: I remember that actually] and we were in there with waders and I was pulling out these glass bottles that were covered with slime. And it was the craziest feeling and I feel like it was only the type offeeling I could reproduce in a movie. I felt like they were like relics and artifacts and things like that. So some of the images I see in my head are the river kind of moving with under the earth a set of gears turning in order to make the water go, because it's so old it's not even water in my head, it's just kind of this...1 don't know. And the film's going to make this...the film I made in school was made with live action and animation combined, and so that's what I see for this one, this process of combining these two things and making it this totally new place. And so now it just kind of exists... I don't really make narrative stuff, but there are narratives in the movie but it's not really cohesive and I don't really care. I just have things I see in my head and that's what I want to see on screen, and once I see it, it will tell me what I need to make next. You know? So that's kind of just how I make stuff. And I think that's healthy, it feels good for me to make things that way. I think when I was in school I reacted a lot to, you have to plan this out and do this this way, and I was just like, no. so it's really just like making art for me has been figuring out what feels good. and hanging out with kids has been a huge part of that, cause it feels good to them when they come after a hard day and they get to draw. And it feels the same way for me, and I don't feel like I'm silly for admitting that. That it feels really good to just zone out and listen to music and draw. It's like my favorite thing.

And there are going to be bats in the film. A lot of the idea with the plant succession with that plants re-taking over a landscape. I think the bats are going to be, cause they are really important for spreading seeds, people don't really know that but they are. So part of the idea is that these bats are going to be this force that helps this transition. But also...I'm also this pseudo-science, like I really like science but I don't seriously study it or have any serious credentials to say anything about it but I'll read books about bats. So anyway, what I've learned is that bats with their sonar, echo location that they give off, I really just think that that's a beautiful idea. I really like that that's how they find food. And even fruit bats that don't have echo location, they have a little bit so they can fly through the trees that much easier, which I think is a pretty cool idea. So these bats, I think their echo is going to be this song that's kind of sung between them and this human character and do call and response with this human character. I don't know. I keep having funny little scenes come to me.

[RA: that's cool. That's awesome]

but I don't know how I'm going to do it, I just have to do it.