Tinamarie Ivey

The Logger Project

 

Location:  Blue Ox Millworks, Eureka, CA 2011

Co-Creator, Producer/Ensemble Member (singing and acting in brown skirt)

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As a co-founder of Sanctuary Stage I began The Logger Project with the goal of creating an original, regionally specific play in collaboration with the Blue Ox Millworks, Ink People Center for the Arts, Four on the Floor, residents, historians, logging families and timber companies.   The Logger Project, took place over a twelve-month period.  The project was developed through a community-engaged theater making process and based on the lives of Pacific Northwest logging families located in Humboldt County, California. 

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This project is an exploration of the logger told through an original score and stories that shape the play - a glimpse of the history, day-to-day lives, and experiences of the men and women who call themselves loggers.  

The play was performed at the Blue Ox Millworks historic landmark with professional actors and community members. A simple outside setting with outdated and authentic milling equipment, fire pit and 100-year-old logger home as the backdrop.  The original script and score was accompanied by a bluegrass band, Bucky Walters, and a local choir as backup.  The play began at sunset with a toasty fire center stage.  At the close of each performance a Q&A took place where audience members could address the logger community and artists.

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The Inspiration

The Logger Project began as an experiment since much of my exposure to the logging industry was through the protests and extreme activism on the Humboldt State University campus where I graduated and eventually taught.  At the time I had never met nor spoke to anyone associated with the logging industry but I had plenty of well-meaning and educated individuals speaking to me of the evils of logging and the self-sacrifice of Julia Butterfly Hill.  Julia Butterfly, is American environmental activist who lived in a 180-foot-tall, 1,500-year-old redwood tree named Luna.  For 738 days between 1997 and 1999 she lived within the branches of Luna, with the purpose of preventing the felling of the ancient tree.  

 

My love of the redwood forests grew rapidly during my tenure in Humboldt County.  I came to possess a deep connection to the power and beauty experienced each time I walked, camped, and fished among the groves.  And yet, I believed that there was a voice unheard from the distance, a voice that had been shamed and ostracized, it was the logger’s story.  I decided that there was a need to investigate the negative impact that activism and protests were having upon the logging towns and the families that lived there.  Because of this I became determined to understand the culture of the logger.