Saturday, December 31 Collaboration with Indi McCasey. I have been feeling such a sense of gratitude and community around this project that I really wanted to just gather people together, make the last work of the year, say some thank yous, and have a party.

A few weeks ago I asked a lot of people to email me one thing that they would do if they knew they would die before 2006. It was fascinating to get responses up through the evening of the 31st. From each response I took a word and froze it in an ice cube.

Around 8:00, a group of about 15 friends processed from my apartment to Pratt beach carrying candles in some of the 739 cups we had used in July's heat wave commemoration. We gathered at the end of the pier and I read out loud the last wishes I had received, all in the first person, no names attached. Then we handed out ice cubes for people to toss in the lake, use to chill their drinks, or dispose of as they wished. Later there were toasts and treats and dancing, and if I hadn't made it to 2006 I would have died happy.

Wednesday, December 28 The moon is waning, and there are guests in town from Luxemburg. Fresh meat!

I asked Katherine, Erica, Indi, Brandy, and Pierre to take a candle and a piece of masking tape and write on the tape something they are letting go of in 2005. Our intention was to find someplace we could install them in snow and light them, but the snow of Chicago was too polluted and frozen solid for candles, so I burned them at home.

Tuesday, December 27 Goldfish installations on the way to and from the Elmhurst Public Library Children's Section.

Wresting a few goldfish out of the ziplock baggies of a 2 and a 4-year-old proved more difficult than I had expected, even in the service of art. These were two of the places they ended up: in the palm of a glove that someone else had installed on the cable pole, and on the ledge of the fish tank after Natalie pointed out that the fish in the tank looked just like the fish she was eating. It took library staff approximately 12 minutes to de-install the crackers.

Thursday, December 22 earlier in the week Indi and I discovered that someone had installed a photograph of Honey, a dog whose life ended in 2005, in the honey and salt sanctuary/installation in the parking lot of the Morse Avenue Fruit & Meat market. While we were checking out and documenting the photo, we were approached by a man in a store uniform who asked me if I had put up the photo. I truthfully said no, but that I knew the dog. He told us that they had been interested in this little art project and had intentionally left it untouched. I confessed that it was my project but I didn't go into the whole background. Frankly, he didn's seem to need any background. I thanked him for leaving it up. He said, "Yeah, we thought it was kinda beautiful. We don't really get it, but we figure it must mean something to somebody."

So tonight I installed 19 cherry recipes or photos of cherry dishes cut out of a Better Homes & Gardens Dessert book.

Wednesday, December 21 snow candle mandala, collaboration with Indi McCasey. On Tuesday night I had a long and wonderful phone conversation with Ru & Geryll Robbins, friends of mine displaced from New Orleans. They told me about their current project, Category 5 Arts: Formed after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Category 5 is a small collective of artists, educators, and healers.
Category 5 makes earth-art offerings to celebrate the beauty and power of our planet and make visible the underlying patterns and forces that create the fabric of our experience.

Tonight's work was a gesture of solidarity and an idea directly stolen from Ru, who reported that she had just finished a candle mandala in the snow in Vermont. I just couldn't wait for Ru's documentation to see what that would look like.

Tuesday, December 20 On Saturday I was given a bright red bottle of cherry wine. Having determined that it would probably be too sweet for my taste, I chose to make art with it.

The lake has frozen in such an interesting way. It's been bitterly cold for weeks in Chicago, and I walked out on the ice in the same area where I did beet juice stencils last January. Only now the shoreline is like glaciers, some of which have broken off and are floating on the water. What I wanted to create was an Andy Goldsworthy-esque pool of red in a frozen crater of ice. The finished work looked more like something that one might walk by and wonder if it was a crime scene, but not be quite sure.

Monday, December 19 At the office holiday party, there was a live microphone hooked up to a sound system, and Melissa's Secret Santa had given her a collection of stories called Red Hot Santa. Add to that a conference room full of wine-sipping colleagues, and you've got a performance.

I read aloud, into the mike, a selection from the story "Santa Slave," by Leanne Banks. "After her best friend disappears, Hilary takes matters into her own hands and finds herself caught in the throes of danger, while a hunky male operative hopes to mix pleasure with business."

Saturday, December 17 Lockport, IL, home of Valerie and Ron Giles.

All afternoon I looked out at this beautiful curvy stone wall, the table and chairs, and the unblemished snow covering everything. The windows of the rec room looked out on this scene. So while everyone else played pool and ate pistachio cake, I snuck some ice cubes and cranberry juice outside to make some work. My 2- and 4-year-old nieces left steamy mouth marks on the insides of the windows while they watched, and talked to me about it afterward:

Renée: (age 4) Miss Nicole, what were you doing outside?
Nicole: What did you think I was doing?
Renée: Making a show.
Nicole: That’s right.
Renée: And all the people were inside, and you were outside?
Nicole: Yep.

Wednesday, December 14 in October, there was a gallery showing of conceptual art pieces at the California College of Art in San Francisco. The piece that Indi and I liked best was a video of an artist pushing a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it melted and disappeared. The block started out rather large and unwieldy and ended up a tiny puddle.

In Miami Beach, I pulled a couple extra "anonymous" slips of paper out of the pocket of my jeans. Indi added a penny and made a hockey-puck size ice cube.

I was documenting the ice cube at a bus stop when someone approached and stared down at me and the ice. He asked me what it was, and I explained it was an ice cube that was part of an art project. He sat down and said, "you don't get ice down here. Now, where I'm from, there's 5 inches of snow. My mother still lives there. She hasn't left the house for a week." When I told him I was from Chicago he remembered being there as a boxer, and being stung by the wind. He told me that he and his wife had lost their fishing boat in Hurricane Wilma. He said I was a nice person.

When Indi came along and kicked the ice cube down the street, he said, "you better go. That guy's stealing your ice cube." I told him that meant it was time to go.

We kicked it down Collins Avenue in Miami beach until it melted, and Indi dipped her finger in the puddle to form the number 739, which we then watched evaporate in the midday sun.

Monday, December 12 contact improv, tumbling, and general showing off for the residents of Miami beach with Indi McCasey at the fountain dedicated to Henri Levy. Our main audience member circled the little patch of grass where we were playing, calling the attention of various passers-by to our work. Conversations went something like this:

Indi: Did I tell you I learned a one-handed cartwheel?
Nicole: Show me.
Indi: I need to practice my roundhouse.
Nicole: It’s called a roundoff. Wanna do that thing we did on the beach where you roll over my back?
Indi: Yeah. Now you try. Good, but you’re supposed to land on the other side.

Sunday, December 11 Pat Graney liked my song late Saturday night and gave me a funky shirt today.

After the NPN closing dinner and keynote at the band shell, NPN staff member Bryan (left) asked me if I had made a performance yet. When I told him I hadn't, and I had no ideas, he pointed out the live mike and the crowd of people milling about. So I sang Red Apple Juice again.

Saturday, December 10 there was a late night cabaret at the National Performance Network meeting, and I signed up for a slot. I used my three minutes to sing Red Apple Juice. Of course, since it's the NPN meeting, there's going to be people in the audience who are Appalachian artists who will want to talk about the song, and people who just happen to know that in southern mountain music, the pipes of the Scots Irish people were banned so they translated those tones into string and vocal qualities, which could be heard in my rendition of the song.

But the really exciting performance of the night was an unexpected cameo in Scott Turner Schofield's excerpt from Debutante Balls. Left: the photographer liked this picture because Scott is in transition.

Friday, December 9 First I needed to see the number 739 scratched into the sand of Miami beach, and then washed away by the Atlantic ocean.

Then I dug another 160 foot trench, traced along the path of the shape made by the surf, and then washed away, bit by bit.

Thursday, December 8 I have a really cute maroon 70s overshirt with white stitching and red and white buttons. The last time I wore it was in San Francisco. When I was in the bay area I found a plastic tube with a top--maybe a pen case? and thought that it would be the perfect container for some found art. But I didn't manage to do anything with it. One the plane to Miami I found the tube, and Indi suggested I put something in it and then slip it into someone's bag. Lately I like little texts created from blocking out parts of a paragraph of type:

I'm trying to think clearly now, trying to get back to who I am. Her? Him? Probably both. I took a deep breath.

I slipped it into a pink straw bag at the National Performance Network opening reception. Later I saw that the bag was owned by Maria Elena, a performer from the bay area.

lately I think a lot about the 41 heat wave victims whose bodies were never claimed. Some were anonymous victims; some probably were identified but no next of kin could be found.

I went out onto the street on this bitterly cold night, thinking I would work with cherries. I was dressed appropriately for the weather. Then I encountered my neighbor, Jeri, and chatted with her on the street while her daughter was inside. This is how audience interaction happens lately:

Jeri: What are you doing out here?
Nicole: I was looking for my friend.
Jeri: Are those snowpants you’re wearing?
Nicole: Yes. They’re really warm.
Jeri: Yeah, I like snowpants too. What’s that you’ve got in your hand?
Nicole: It’s a jar of cherries.
Jeri: Maraschino cherries?
Nicole: Yes, maraschino cherries.

Really, what more is there to say? Explain that I wanted to see if I could make ice cream sundaes with cherries, but discovered the snow was to cold an dry for packing, so decided to write the word anonymous over and over again on the tables outside this school until I couldn't feel my fingers?

Tuesday, December 6 the place at Lawrence and Sheridan that was a cooling center this summer is a warming center in the winter.

I had made several ice trays worth of ice cubes with the word anonymous frozen inside. I installed the ice cubes in a row along the ledge in front of the window of the warming center.

Monday, December 5 Dirt Drive. Adam Farrington is an artist who has made New Orleans his home and art community for ten years. He loves the city and wants it to thrive. The premise of his Dirt Drive project is that

"humans habitually destroy natural systems and replace them with man-made substitutes. As humans have replaced the food chain with finance and the market place, we must substitute the postal system for the Mississippi river's ruined capacity for building soil mass in southern Louisiana. Costal errosion and subsidence is a serious problem. The Dirt Drive is intended to raise awareness of this issue in a way that is diverse and imaginative."

Adam asks people to send him donations of dirt, and that is what I did. My bag of dirt contained soil and wood chips from the back yard of the Pratt-Ashland co-op, as well as leaves and snow. I also wrote him a letter to let him know that participating in his conceptual art project was part of my conceptual art project, both on the subject of natural disasters. Thanks to Jane Haldiman for sending me this link!

Sunday, December 4 Warren Park, Beet Juice Snow Cherries. I brought a jar of beet juice with me to snowy Warren Park to see what might happen. What happened was that beet juice snowballs made a gorgeous pile of cherries, served up for whoever might come along to sit at this table.

Saturday, December 3 Cox and Brook have a new home, and after a martini-sipping dance party, it is now bathed in gin. I placed fought the crowds into corners of the apartment to place 13 blessings where they might vibrate out.

Of course Morrison knew the last one should go in the hearth. She knelt on the floor with me and asked, "have you always known how to do stuff like this?" I said no, but I'd been practicing for a long time.

Friday, December 2 The Diesel Daisies will be representing Chicago in the 2006 Gay Games! Tonight they held a fundraiser at T's bar & restaurant. The main money shakedown was the raffle, and they had plenty of fabulous prizes. Indi's assignment was to make my performance of the day raise money for the Daisies, and suggested that a lap dance from me would be a good raffle prize to add to the list. She then proceeded to give me lap dance lessons (poor me.) She generously shared with me a signature Honey and Charley move: with your back to the lap dance recipient, kick open their legs, turn 180 degrees, and commence gyrating. Lap dance recipient and Diesel Daisy Sally Kolin probably blushed for a week. Photo from Windy City Times.

Thursday, December 1 when Indi arrived in Chicago she asked me about why I had the word "fast" written in Sharpie on my hand. I said I needed to remind myself to start fasting at 10:30 that evening so I could do a blood draw the next day. She then asked what kind of performance I was doing that involves a fast and a blood draw.

Actually I was doing a 12-hour fast for a workplace health screening. But since someone had automatically assumed it was a performance, I began to think about what it would mean if a fast and a blood draw was a performance. Nora insisted that when I request a vial of blood for myself, for possible use on snow. But the people drawing blood refused to give me an extra vial of it, even when I explained that I wanted it for an art project. So the 12 hour fast turned into 19 hours (7+3+9=19).