Marx ZauberMantel
I MARRIED MY WORK
• Performance, Christie Pits, Toronto, September 12, 2020
• Film short by Dennis Day
My artwork often uses text and images in innovative ways. For this project I created a wedding dress from the torn pages of 40 years of notebooks. I wore the dress with its ten foot train and headdress, carrying a bouquet of flowers - all also made from notebook pages, as a performance in Christie Pits.
There was a group of musicians playing in the park and they agreed to play "Here Comes the Bride" - serendipity!
My stepgrandsons Killian and Connor carried the train, and my stepgrandaughter Ciara handed out flowers to the wedding guests. There were two videographers, a still photographer, and two ushers.
For a version of the video with closed captions go here
Film transcript
Forty years of notes, lists and phone numbers. Forty-three books.
The mundane underpinnings of my art.
A lifelong commitment.
A marriage.
They say that all dedicated artists must have a wife.
But who will be my wife?
An artist who never stops.
Who cannot sleep.
My work is my self.
So, I married myself.
I married my work.
It's said we are inscribed in the book of life.
Black marks on white paper.
We can't read the whole script of our life.
Only as it unfolds, chapter by chapter.
So many plot twists.
So many characters.
As I walked the path.
I felt all the years in between.
