CHRISTINE MURRAY : 

Hi, I’m Christine – one of the writers behind this audio guide. And this sculpture was so mysterious, I just had to talk to the artist about it… 

SFX sounds of a number being dialed, error tones 

MURRAY : (no break in dial tone audio):  

Turns out, Daisy Youngblood lives and works in a remote part of Costa Rica. 

MURRAY: “Uh oh.”  

OPERATOR:  

“Your call cannot be completed at this time in the country you are calling, please try your call later” 

MURRAY :  

After a few attempts, I finally got through. 

(phone ringing)  

MURRAY: Here we go, it’s ringing now. 

DAISY YOUNGBLOOD:  

Hello? 

MURRAY: 

Daisy, hi, how are you? 

MURRAY  (no break in phone call audio):  
I wanted to know everything. She told me this sculpture started with a walk through the woods. 

SFX: The sounds of the landscape; birds, a river rushing, insects buzzing 

YOUNGBLOOD: 

I’m on the side of the mountain. It’s overgrown now with trees. And there’s a big river running through. 

It was after a flood and the river bank had torn up small trees. And so this one tree that I dragged in from the river had the rock still in it, that it had grown around. 

I don’t have a plan. I don’t preconceive the piece. The intention is to follow the energies that are waking up and see where they lead me.  

I’m working with it or over a year, with nothing clicking, until one night I had a dream of Anubis coming out of the woods and looking at me, then going back in.  

MURRAY : 

Anubis is an Egyptian God associated with the afterlife. I looked it up. Daisy told me he’s always pictured with the head of a dog.  

YOUNGBLOOD: 

So not until the dream did I understand the rock, that had been in the root of the tree, as being the energy of our first chakra. 

MURRAY : 

Daisy says that taking time – sometimes a really long time – helps her “cook the work down to its essence.”  

YOUNGBLOOD:  

It’s a process of discarding what doesn’t resonate in a very deep way. The piece at the end is a very concentrated essence of gesture, of feeling. So it’s a very meditative process of the life and the work. I have to be very isolated. Just river and woods and not much interference.  

MURRAY :  

Thank you Daisy, it was great to talk with you. Bye. 

YOUNGBLOOD: 

Bye Bye.