IT RAINED IN BEREA (2006)

It Rained in Berea (2006) was made for the art project, “48 Hours of Making Art” at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio (October-November, 2006). I spent a weekend with 23 other artists (each making a new work within the time allowed) and the result is a sound installation for speakers, hand-cranked cassette players, field recordings, and samples. 22 minute loop.

The piece is a dialogue on three levels: between the sounds, the objects, and the participants. Field recordings of rain, along with samples of spirituals, old regular Baptist services, and Handel’s oratorio “Israel in Egypt” serve as sources of spirituality, community, and mystery. The cassette players contain distilled fragments of the same material, and with the help of participants, complete and compliment sounds that are already present. The cassette players must be hand-cranked to produce sound, further engaging listeners to seek out an understanding of the objects and their function.