Botanical homicide

There is a small bell pepper plant slowly dying a death without dignity in my home. It is set up in front of and on top of several sheets of chroma key blue poster paper inside the walk-in closet of my bedroom. I poured a herbicide on the roots yesterday morning, then aimed a desk lamp upon the plant and waited. Every three hours or so I rolled my camcorder and snapped a digital still. The plant lived on. Last night I squirted more herbicide onto the leaves and stems. This morning, the plant lived on. I began shouting obscenities at it every two hours or so... just walking by the closet and screaming, "die, plant, die!" This evening, the leaves began to shrivel. The little white flowers have closed up and are turning brown. I am sad. I feel guilty. But, I roll my tape and snap my stills.

This little plant is sacrificing its life for "art." It will become one of several abstract images my team and I are assembling as a background film for a ballet about Ellis Island. The plant is supposed to symbolize the Irish potato famine. I could not find a potato plant, although I spent most of one whole morning last week on the telephone with agricultural extension agents all over Central Florida. When I told them what I was doing, that I wanted to commit botanical homicide, they snickered and referred me to someone else. After hours of frustrating phone calls and the discovery that NO ONE in Central Florida grows potatoes, I looked up the potato plant on the internet. It looked almost exactly like a bell pepper plant. So, I went to Lowes and bought a bell pepper plant. And now that innocent bell pepper plant is a victim of art.

Also victims of this particular "art:" two antique windows from A&T Antiques on Orange Avenue. We rolled tape as we threw rocks through the glass. Half a bag of flour and an old fan from my garage were destroyed while Ben and I tried to create a "dust storm" in a parking lot on Friday.

About this project, some would say it is "artistically challenging," and that it is "taking me beyond my comfort zone." I choose to say "I have no idea what I'm doing but I desperately hope some of this will work."