Joanna Dreams of Animals

Prints & Handmade Books

The PMC Gallery at Artscape Wychwood Barns exhibited a series of linoleum block prints that I made in conversation with the long lists of animal names that my mother repeatedly copied when she was diagnosed with dementia. I also made hand-printed and hand-stitched books and other multiples for the show. These are limited-edition pieces and all of the prints and multiples were made in series of fifty or less.

Performance

Mike Belitsky and I collaborated on a poem-and-drums “song” to open the show and Gillian Frise and I collaborated on a performance piece that integrated elements of theatre, performance art, and improvisational conversation with a reading from my memoir An Alphabet for Joanna: A Portrait of My Mother in 26 Fragments. (For more performance of this work by me, check out the audio book.)

Music

Mike Belitsky created a looping soundscape for the show weaving together my voice and the voice of our son as we both read one of Joanna’s lists of animal names. This played in the gallery for the duration of the exhibit, when performances were not happening.

Listen to the core 9-minute track by clicking the play icon below.

Artist Statement

“When my mother was first diagnosed with advanced dementia, she tried to prove that she wasn’t sick by memorizing a list of more than 150 different animal names. She compulsively copied this list over and over on all kinds of surfaces — in large sketchbooks, journals, inside the covers of novels and self-help books, even across two of her pillowcases. These lists haunted me, they were at once beautiful and devastating. I needed to find a way to rescue these animals — these expressions of my mother’s insistent creative energy — and to create a new imaginal space where they could live.

“In the fall of 2020, deep into the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, I published a memoir about my relationship with my mother, An Alphabet for Joanna: A Portrait of My Mother in 26 Fragments. When curator Lynn Jackson, after reading this book, approached me about putting a show and reading together, I knew I wanted to create something new out of my mother’s lists. The act of isolating elements of my mother’s language, arranging lines into new forms, and then tracing the movements of her hand, of literally carving her handwriting in reverse, was deeply healing in its intimacy. I felt that I was holding her hand and following her mind across time.

“We touch the world with our hands. Doing this work ‘by hand’ was critical. I embraced the ways that each print arrived with its own unique imperfections. In Cave Art, Jean Clottes’ survey of Palaeolithic cave painting,  the historian proposes that ‘The forms, techniques, and meanings of art are diverse, but the basic principle remains the same: art is the result of the projection of a strong mental image on the world, in order to interpret and transform reality, and recreate it in material form.’ This definition resonated with me as I came across it while chasing the images inside these lists, as I strove to transform these documents of loss into colours and shapes with the power to shift their meaning. I was also struck by the author’s impulse to list the most frequently repeated images found on the cave walls — ‘horses, bison, ibex, deer, mammoth’ and ‘lions, wolves, cave bears.’

“Of course. This is what I wanted — to cover the walls with my mother’s animals.

“I’m grateful to Lynn Jackson for the opportunity to present this project. My partner and husband, the musician Mike Belitsky, created a soundscape for my cave, weaving together my voice and our son’s voice as we read from the lists. Artist Gillian Frise, who is also the daughter of a mother with dementia, generously collaborated with me on a short performance piece in conversation with the book and prints. I realized recently that, just like my mother, I didn’t want to stop making the lists. I still keep thinking of the different animals I haven’t yet scratched into empty space, of the beautiful colours they might like to inhabit. For months, I’ve moved inside her dream.”

— Damian Rogers

WHEN MY MOTHER WAS DIAGNOSED WITH DEMENTIA
SHE TRIED TO MEMORIZE A LIST OF MORE THAN 150 ANIMAL NAMES

white spotted skunk, black footed ferret
mandrill monkey, howler monkey
ocelot, arctic hare, gray mouse lemur
animals racing across the surface of sketchbooks
animals filling journals, names inserted inside borrowed novels
armadillo, gazelle, porcupine
sometimes stray notes attached: acrobat
Manx cat — appeared naturally 300 years ago
reputation for ferocity
she tapped into her computer and showed me
the slow sweet dance of the blue-footed booby
laughing laughing “Isn’t he a scream?”
as I emptied each drawer, I found new lists
lists torn from notebooks, folded and crammed
lists inside the jacket covers of self-help classics
the 7 habits of highly effective
buffalo, moose, ostrich, bloodhound, lamb
names scrawled in pen across two pillowcases
animals running all night through her dreams

—From the memoir An Alphabet for Joanna: A Portrait of My Mother in 26 Fragments by Damian Rogers

Joanna Dreams of Animals is a multi-media exhibit by Damian Rogers featuring prints, handmade books, zines, performance, installation, and sound art that opened at the Peter MacKendrick Community Gallery at Artscape Wychwood Barns in Toronto under the curation of Lynn Jackson on December 16, 2022. On December 16 and 17, Damian read from her memoir and performed collaboratively with Mike Belitsky and Gillian Frise. The performances were followed by conversation between Damian and Gillian on making art with (and about) mothers with dementia.