I don't think you get a choice to be an artist or not.

I think so.

No, I mean you can choose to be an artist but like it's not a it's not a choice I made it's a direction that I had to follow but as far as like yeah I'm gonna do this I was probably shortly after I got sober for the last time and I was like seeing life clearly you know I'd been a performing poet prior to that I was a photographer prior to that sort of I was supposed to go off to photography school but I was mess, and then when I finally got clean... uh... that was it i did it just was very obvious that that uh... not only was i bit by the bug i mean i became a bug My name is Erica Felicella.

I am an artist based in Oak Cliff in North Texas.

I am a performance artist with a kick.

I specialize in not only performance, but I also do site-specific installation, photography, new media, and well, whatever the work calls for.

I want to love myself again because I am worth it and beautiful.

I relinquish this fear of mine so I can move forward in my growth, no longer in pain.

Love myself again.

Feel joy.

Let it go.

Performance is where the body is the medium.

It's about duration, it's about time, and it's use of the body.

One of the beautiful things about performance is, you know, it is never the same, twice.

So the thing that you saw will never happen again.

And that memory that you carry with you, that's all it is at that point.

It's a temporal experience, which.

you know, I also enjoy that in life because we're so all about collecting and having and in performance, it's all about the moment and what you take with you.

Today is the final session of the performance method workshop series that I've been developing for a while and all the artists will be giving their final performances and this is something they've been working on for a full month.

We know what's going to happen as a community, as a group, but at the same time we have no idea.

Bones need salt, need water, need vapor.

Bones need salt, need water, need vapor.

Bones need salt, need water, need .

.

.

Need water, need vapor.

Bones need salt.

[bells chiming] [clapping] I don't have a direct correspondence or a direct meaning to what my piece is in my life.

And I really like that.

And this feels like it was... probably related to grieving, probably related help things.

I don't know, it's almost like I don' feel that much of a desire to try to establish meaning.

It wasn't until I was kind of hidden in my little cave that I was able to really start to feel the effects of the mantra and of just being witnessed in it all.

So.

Yeah, I think it's almost for me what feels really nice is just being able to be witness in my own abstraction and have that let myself let myself still feel like the sense of belonging even when it doesn't make a ton of sense and that's okay.

I just want to follow up and say it's beautiful to watch the performance of and it was just as beautiful to all of y'all be a part of it the whole way.

It was just really nice to see the caring and intent that everybody approached everybody else's work.

I'm with you.

Yeah, there's a sense of belonging and that's part of why I'm so glad that I signed up for this is there's shared language with other performance artists that I don't experience very, ever.

Even unless I'm collaborating with a friend or another artist.

So, and now it's like I have this aliveness that I'm taking away.

Then I'm like, oh, okay, this is a really healing and beautiful way of expression.

So I'm encouraged.

My community here in Dallas is diverse.

It is like a beautifully tangled web that crosses over many genres and styles of people.

What I love is that I get to live in this Dallas that is welcoming, it is open, there's a sense of belonging everywhere I go.

Growing up as kids we moved around a lot and so I am Dallas by way of San Antonio by way of East Coast.

I was supposed to be here a short duration.

I came up here to get to know my sister better and well I didn't really know myself very well and I was quite young so I made myself stand still and in the interim I fell in love with the place, its people, and its culture, and here I am.

About 25 years later, just as in love with the places, I became to be as a youngster.