These Words Atop the Wall began taking form when COVID lockdown came around in March 2020.

I felt compelled to write during this time, but I didn’t have paper large enough to contain what wanted to be expressed. So, when inspiration struck one day, I looked at the wall in my studio I’d used for self-taping auditions, these RUSH, IT’S GOTTA BE DONE TODAY RIGHT NOW THIS MOMENT slim chances at a dream that was no longer true. I looked at this wall, felt a force pointing me toward my favorite Cedar Pointe #2 Pencil, took it in my hand, and wrote and wrote and wrote automatically in these tiny letters on the wall until the sensation left. This process continued regularly during my 18 month lockdown, finshing just before I returned to working outside the home again in August 2021. No judgment of the words. No reading them to figure out what was channeling through me. Just complete trust in whatever was being put down in the present moment.

I relished the late nights in my studio during those 18 months. Automatic writing, automatic drawings, filming nature and improvisations, drawing notebooks full of Visages from the Unseen World with my eyes closed. Works exploring the subconscious, the shadow, sexuality, gender, remnants of shame, the concept of “respectability,” personal and societal transformation, patterns of marginalization of Queer people, our collective traumas, how the experience of time, autobiography, and memory manifests in a country moving toward fascism. An embrace of a different style of painting. Painting dreams, painting images, painting words. Proof of existence.

The wall ended in a near perfect 6’4”x6’4” square of tiny words.

It, and the other works accompanying it, have become an artifact of self and society, March 2020-August 2021.

At the end of July of this year, I received a Satellite Fund grant, administered by SPACES and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program to bring this performance installation to life. I’m working with Bobby Ayala Perez to remove the wall from my studio and install it in the space. These words atop the wall were transcribed into an 11”x14” sketchbook, new automatic drawings recorded with them. This book has become my script. Words, movement, images contained within. A meditation piercing the veil of lies comprising identity and place in the moment before we die, when life flashes before our eyes, and we’re holding hands, letting go, not letting go, saying our last goodbye. Each performance to be an action painting in a sea of presence, discovering the words along with you in the space we’ll soon share.

These Words Atop the Wall will be presented at The 1300 Gallery at 78th Street Studios, Cleveland, April-May 2023. Selected performances to be streamed.

I've partnered with Ohio City Theatre Project to make this happen.

Ohio City Theatre Project is known for producing world class theatrical events that are experienced intellectually and felt in the heart. OCTP’s socially conscious work, like But to work! and Central Concern, winner of Producers Choice at the 2022 Borderlight Fringe Festival, makes a difference.

If you have the means, please consider a 100% tax deductible donation to support this work.

Donations may be made by check, payable to OCTP’s fiscal agent, Ohio City, Inc. Write in the memo line, “In support of Ohio City Theatre Project.” The funds raised will allow an expanded vision of These Words Atop the Wall, and go toward paying modest artist stipends, space and installation costs, production costs, and OCTP’s teaching artist fees.

Checks can be mailed to:
Ohio City Theatre Project
1651 Crest Road
Cleveland Heights, OH 44121

Thanks for your time and consideration. I hope this will be the first of many performance opportunities for These Words Atop the Wall.

Wishing you peace and good health,
Ray