Summer Wagner

Coming of Age

December, 1949

Judith: for when you are in your winter and in need of deep change in direction and spirit. 

The ritual I’ve drawn is best practiced on a waning or new moon.  

Like the seed planted in dark soil, you will start your journey in the shadows. The greatest alchemy we achieve through our practice is the transmutation of the soul. It is easy to know ourselves, but a great challenge to transform what we know into something entirely new. Drink deep. The wind through the tunnel will be beastly for a time.

Sweep the path before casting the circle, your mother doesn’t tend to the tunnel since your father started back at the factory.

Yours, 
Grandma Helen

Midamerican Fever Dream started as many of my ideas do--in my notes app or journal. 

I had been dreaming for quite some time about a body of work that captured the Midwest through the perspective of different characters, particularly a crone character, an old woman on the brink of disillusionment rediscovering her strength. I knew I wanted the context to be in the post-industrial Midwest. The ideas started emerging around 2021, and slowly formed into drawings and fragments of lore and collections of thrifted or found objects around the house. 

I began casting late 2022 and started to shoot the series in Spring of 2023. I had a breakdown of all of the characters and their corresponding scenes and how they would all tie together. I worked with an assistant director (my close friend Megan Devine) and a gaffer for a majority of the scenes; making this my first series utilizing a team of people to create a body of work. 

My previous two collections, The In-Between and The Parody of a Tangled Thread, were large bodies of work with overarching visual themes and storylines that intersect and merge to create a sort of visual poetry. Midamerican Fever Dream has a more distinct set of characters who are experiencing transformation through consecutive moments. There is essentially a process they are undergoing. I want people to have time to dive into each wave and feel immersed in the mysteries in the same way that the characters might be experiencing their own journey.

In truth, the first character I truly discovered while writing this story was the landscape of the post-industrial Midwest. The rustbelt. The history of the rustbelt is that of abandonment, struggle, and mutilated memory in the form of old buildings in overgrown fields. When industry left the midwest in the 80’s to pursue cheaper labor across seas, cities like Detroit and Rockford, IL became hinterlands.

When people live and grow up in these spaces, we often glorify the memory of what they once were, holding onto the hope that the comfortable lifestyle of our parents or grandparents will somehow miraculously return if we wait patiently. I’ve come to think of the rustbelt’s story arch as a sort of abandoned father's wound. The “father” being the industrial economic structure that Midamerican families depended on but has since left. The industrial powers abandoned people without the means to uphold the illusion of the American dream, while being forced to pretend it is still a viable or attainable way to live.

Thus, the fever dream is experienced collectively, a dream lasting almost half a century, manifested in the lives of individuals and families forced into a pathological normal way of life, surrounded by the ghosts and bones of an old world we pretend is still alive. But, from those ashes emerges an ancient story of rebirth, new growth and self-discovery. But, only if those immersed are willing to discover a new way of life, and heal from the wounds of the past.

Behind the Artwork with Summer Wagner

Theatre of Salt and Stone

*North*: Winter, Sleep, Dream, 
Jaw bone, the book, pillar of crystal, cough syrup, dice

*East*: Spring, Epiphany, Choice, 
Feather, urn, lock of hair and juniper 

*South*: Summer, Flesh, Emergence,
Doll, Red jasper, flame


Midamerican Fever Dream Collection Series

It’s not that I don’t like the logistics industry. I actually like seeing the drivers every day, they’re crazy guys. I’ll talk to some of them at lunch as they come in, or sometimes they’ll come in while I’m working late and just drink till they can’t see. They sleep in their trunks. Sometimes I’ll sleep here too. Anyways, it’s just that temporary work is always hard to get attached to. And no one wants to get attached to you either, so you’re kind of always given the office no one wants. I guess it’s like driving a truck you don’t own. So I never decorate. 


Ernest in His Office at the Trucking Company

After laying still for too long with your arms folded over your knees and your head tucked into your chest, it burns to move your joints. To finally unfold. 

It’s reckless, I know. To want to be seen. 

Idk. 

Bridget’s Old Room

A spiritual war taking place. A battle for the soul of every person alive. Children of the light and dark. Regular people caught in crossfire. We must take responsibility. We must build an ark. 

Oatmilk and lip balm for Bridget.  

Douglas Live

Thursday Night Dinner

On the pavement. Abandoned dry clean store. Bridget is there. They’re all recording. I don't know what to say. They’re all watching, but I don’t have it all together. It's all…it’s all over the place. I think my clothes are inside but I can’t get in, it’s all closed, like for good. Abandoned, no one left inside and no lights on either, only the outside ones. 

That dream of when we first went to the ocean as kids. Ernest collects washed up sea sponges. Mom lying in the shade. Me in the water, pretending to be a coast guard. I don’t realize how strong the waves are. One crashes down on top of me. I don’t see anything, just the feeling of my body in the water, thrashing. Completely out of control. This moment on the pavement feels the same.

Pageant of Limelights

I didn’t realize that all those years of anxious play would lead to so many play-less years. They don’t play anymore, either. We still dress up, one in a suit, one in a uniform, me in my smile. We still pretend, but not for fun. 

I dream of those toy soldiers and trucks I gave them. Looked it up and found out they’re made from lead, a subtle poison with not so subtle dreams. I suppose that’s the magic in that. Blood magic.

Mother of Industry

It’s where dad worked. That big abandoned building on Main Street. They say it’s the biggest abandoned building in the whole United States. It’s so big, it’s where we built machines that build the machines. Anyways, this place built textile machines, and it built me in a way. That sort of thing. A place kind of shapes you. 

I’m standing in front, outside the gates. I’m there for an interview but the whole place is boarded up and falling apart. I feel…soft and swollen. I feel something in my chest, like when you’re about to cry and there’s that tightness and that lump. But the lump gets bigger and bigger and I can feel it coming up my throat until finally this bird, a bluebird, flies out right onto my hand! He’s staring at me and I’m staring at him, little guy. I felt bad for him, you know, being stuck there inside me for so long.

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