Portland Museum of Art - Portland, ME (Museum Tour)

WHEN: Friday, July 21st, 5:30 - 7:30 PM
WHERE: Museum Garden - Portland Museum of Art - Portland, ME
WHAT: The Bring Your Own Voice Museum Tour continues in a northern direction, crossing into Maine for the first time. I used to live in Portland and it holds a special place in my heart, so I am particularly pleased to be returning for this tour.

- Does art have to be beautiful?
- What is the purpose of an art museum?

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Summary:

Number of voices recorded: 15
Reading sheets used: 22
Weather: more torrential than a PT Anderson movie
Level of success: much higher than I ever would have imagined given how it began
Records broken: most rain ever rained on the booth
Photos: Check them out

I had not gotten rained on quite this hard in a long long time. The streets of Portland were transformed into rapids for about an hour, filling the time between when we got the booth setup and when the event started. In that sense, the timing couldn't have been better, so I guess we were lucky, but I can't help but feel that it would have been even luckier to skip the rain entirely. I learned my lesson in Harvard Square last year, so the booth was prepared for rain as well as a plywood box can be prepared. As I was stringing up the blue tarp to the overhanging tree, I felt like I was bringing the booth on its first camping trip, hoping that the thunder wouldn't scare it.
OK, enough personification. Despite the unhelpful weather, the event was definitely a success and I am very pleased that the Portland Museum of Art wanted to participate in the tour. We had a constant stream of people recording, and even though the event was a brief 2 hours long, we managed to get fifteen voices which wasn't too bad. The crowd was quite engaged and interested in what was going on in the plywood box and only two people thought it was a peep show.

My favorite carrot again performed brilliantly, and quite remarkably retained a positive attitude throughout the evening. Thanks also to everyone at the museum who supported this project and to the curiously omnipresent security guards.

As usual, click below to access some representative audio clips:

the beauty of confusion

singing and floating

Wally is very cool

intentionality

we each have our own

never been before

necessary or not?

good to stare

offices suck