"Numbers and Lines," performance by Anne Sherwood Pundyk is based on her visual essay published in the third issue of art critical magazine, "The Forgetory." A small travel journal—the centerpiece for her essay—two books of fiction, photographs of figures pasted onto printed pages, and 31 rounded stones are contained in Pundyk's "Paint Book Box," used in the performance. In response to the issue's theme of "ANXIETY," Pundyk applies the process of counting to order her experiences traveling abroad as recorded in the small black diary. Passages from Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer," (the book she brought with her on the trip) are co-mingled with French vocabulary, recollections of painting, steamships and three generations of relatives centered around the small town of Orient Point, NY. At the close of her performance, Pundyk observes, "The Mississippi River from above looks exactly as Mark Twain described it, wide flat, meandering and muddy. If you like patterns, you could say that the behaviors of various family members are patterned on things their parents and siblings did. We are all part of a wide, flat, meandering, muddy predestined River."
The performance took place on August 26th at Dillon Gallery, in Chelsea, NY.