The Detective Work of an Artist

Clues from old newspapers

Recently I read an article about a performance artist who found a wire recording made in the 1950s in which a family undertakes that awkward effort of acting natural as they record themselves.  Using that recording, the artist created "Say Something Bunny," which she performs in a small Off Off Broadway theater.  When she listened to this unusual wire recording, a technology that predates tape recorders, she became intrigued by the self-conscious conversations of the family, and she set out to discover who they were.  Amazingly, she traced their identities.

Clues from books Isaac Werner read

Having created her performance piece, she wanted to locate a family member to acquire permission to use the recording.  She found the only surviving family member, now seventy-eight years old.  He gave his permission and expressed his amazement in the artist's ability to track down the identities of those on the recording and to find him, saying:  "Allison should really be working for the FBI."

Clues from courthouses

The artist's partner described her efforts in this way:  "A journalist would have started with 'I'm going to find who this person is and get the story from them, but Allison got the story from everything else she could find and put it together."

You have probably realized by now why this newspaper story caught my attention.  I found Isaac Werner's journal, written in 1870-71 and resumed from 1884-1891.  No one is living from that time that I could "get the story from."  I had to be a detective and 'get the story from everything else I could find and put it together.'  Whether you are a writer or a playwright or a narrative poet or some other artist, basing your work on actual historic events, you must be a thorough detective.

Clues from public memorials

There are places to discover the secrets of the past, even when those people about whom you are writing are no longer living and were never famous.  Of course libraries are an obvious place to begin.  In my case, I knew the titles of books in Isaac's own library from the inventory of his estate sale and comments in his journal, and by reading what he read, I learned much about him and the times in which he lived.  Certainly I read books about the period--histories about the Populist Movement, biographies and autobiographies of key figures of that period, books about prohibition and specific historic events.  But, I also interviewed descendants, visited sites relevant to Isaac and the period, walked cemeteries where people mentioned in the book are buried, read old newspapers, and used the valuable information in the local courthouses from deed records and court documents.  

Isaac's journal is an amazing document in itself.  I came to know his community very well, and one of the most difficult challenges in writing my manuscript has been limiting what I can include.  As an editor told me, "Does it advance the story?  If it doesn't, take it out."  

Clues from cemeteries

My manuscript is not a diary or simply Isaac's journal.  Rather it is, as the title suggests, Isaac's story as it reveals the historic Populist Movement, its leaders, and its impact on America both at that time and to the present.  I was unable to include the scandalous story of the runaway elopement or the tragic story of a 15-year-old girl's murder and the lynching of her killer, exciting as both were.  They were both historical to the period and the region, but they did not advance the story of the populist movement that I had chosen to tell.  A detective must follow the clues that will solve the case he is handling, and an artist must advance the story she is telling.

You can enlarge the images by clicking on them.  To read more about "Say Something Bunny" you may go to the June 26, 2017 issue of the New York Times and read the article "The Detective was a Performance Artist" by Elizabeth Vincentelli.