Idea at the start of an art work /  by Eric Etheridge

Cocoon Steelton: The Migrations of Many 2019-2023

On top of my drawing: Card from the Ellis Island archives. People walking down the Steelton hill to the steel mill carrying lights.

The drawing above was the beginning in 2019, an idea at the start of the Steelton artwork that is now coming to fruition over several years of interviewing people in Steelton and the steel mill.

From the late 1800’s on people migrated to Steelton to work in the steel mill. They came from Europe and the American South.

“St. Rocco, Croatia”

“The mountain ridges between Charlotte and Charlottesville”

I wanted to find a way to show this migration visually in my artwork during the procession. These places go as far back as people know or can remember. To illuminate an individual’s place(s) lived is showing history, and in a group it becomes the town and mill’s existence.

EVENT DATE

Cocoon Steelton : The Migrations of Many procession and illumination in Steelton, PA is August 31 at sunset honoring upcoming Labor Day.

Find details about this event here

../ more to come

Projection Workshop for Migrations of Many /  by Eric Etheridge

Here, Martial Buisson and I tested different surfaces for projecting Eric Etheridge’s formal portraits in Steelton, PA. This will happen in September 2023 as part of the night when my Cocoon Steelton The Migrations of Many is illuminated. In Steelton my hope is these portraits will be projected on a large working steel building. We didn’t have a building that size this summer. We had pine and maple trees. The formal portraits will project smoother on a building. This was part of last summer’s workshops.

Pine Tree Surface

The new-used projector

Maple Tree Surface

1st Edit of Steelton Interviews Finished! /  by Eric Etheridge

It was a great pleasure re-reading and editing the interviews I made in Steelton for the Migrations of Many artwork. I will most likely make two more edits on paper before I begin editing the audio from the interviews. I then link these audio excerpts together for the soundtrack. The soundtrack is what you will hear inside the Cocoon in Steelton in early September.

I have a few more interviews to make this spring in Steelton.

Thank you so much to all the donors who gave to my Year-End campaign! /  by Eric Etheridge

We reached our goal!

All the donations will go to my next exciting project: Cocoon Steelton: The Migrations of Many. It will help me to pay a local Field Organizer to work with me to bring the community together to participate in the interviews, the procession and come to the illumination of the Cocoon.

Build of the most recent Cocoon Miskolc: Following the Removals ©Eric Etheridge

Donors of Cocoon 2022 Year-End campaign :

Nancy Ahn, Mary & Joe Ambrosio, Anne Selden Yellott Annab, Jenny Baldwin, Neil Barsky & Joan Davidson Foundation, Jeff Bergman, Meg Browne, Tam & Nora Etheridge, Nancy Finn, Karen Goldfeder, Christina Heintzelman, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Hypermur & Renaud Cousin, Jeffrey Keenan, James & Shelly Macdonald, Darlene Marshall, Caitlin McGeer, Albert Naglieri, Sarah O'Neill, Thomas O’Leary, Michele Owens, Paola Panero, Mark Parsells, Renée Philippi, Ted Porter, Anne, Robert, Mack & Ford Porter-Etheridge, Smaïl Kanouté, Alfred Thoman, Rosemary Wettenhall, Amy Wilentz, and Tara Williams.

THANK YOU ALL!

Cocoon - The Emergence of Historical Legacy /  by Eric Etheridge

by Christina Heintzelman

Thank you Christina Heintzelman for this really nice piece with many photos about Cocoon in the Harrisburg Magazine.

https://harrisburgmagazine.com/arts-culture/cocoon-the-emergence-of-historical-legacy/

Christina’s article came about because I’m currently working on a Cocoon, The Migrations of Many, for Steelton, PA. The Steelton steel plant is one of three rail producers in the Americas. I’ve partnered with the 1688 Local USW Union and have been interviewing residents and past and present steelworkers from the Steelton mill and Eric Etheridge has been taking formal portraits. The performance installation will happened in Fall 2023 in Steelton and then go to SAM in 2024 for their spring exhibition.