Jacklyn Brickman

Taking into account the hand-based labor so ingrained in my process, most of which I’ve learned from my mother, Oldwives and Orbits was a 20-minute performance during which I meticulously cut apart an onion, layer by layer with an X-Acto® knife, sewed each shell of an empty onion sphere back together with sewing thread and needle. A rotisserie motor, prong forks, and spit rod were re-appropriated into an orrery, or solar system model and set adjacent to my workstation. As I finished the stitches of each onion shell, I envisioned it as a new planet (perhaps unbeknownst to the audience) and put into orbit on the makeshift orrery.

Performance footage (on the left) captured by Heather Taylor. Onion MRI from InsideInsides.