Plato, Derrida, and the
Mountainair Sunflower
Festival
What is a
festival? What is a Sunflower Festival? What is the Mountainair
Sunflower
Festival? Now that it has been renamed to something other than
“festival,” will
it still be the Sunflower Festival or will the name change turn it into
something else? Why does this question or answering it even matter?
Ask people to
imagine a chair: nobody will see Plato's ideal chair (the
transcendental
signified). Everyone will see something different, depending on
context, i.e.:
a kitchen table chair, an easy chair, a rattan Papa-san chair; a camp
chair; a
folding chair; an office chair, a Chippendale chair, a Swedish Modern
chair, etc.
To the extent that the transcendental signified, in this case “chair,”
escapes
us, the word chair is a floating signifier. Advertisers try to sell us
Plato's
chair by manipulating the definition. Ultimately, according to Derrida,
while
we are always chasing the transcendental signified, we can never get to
it.
If the definition
of "chair" can be difficult to pin down, abstract words are
infinitely more so. Everybody’s individual, personal, and idiosyncratic
understanding of abstract concepts cannot contain the idea of
individually
presumed components within itself. These are synthetic judgments "a
posteriori,”
grounded in context and individual experience.
Likewise, various
interests, whether hustling the arts or more mundane transactions,
manipulate (hijack)
sunflower’s definition to present the event as something that will sell
art,
promote the town, and most especially bring visitors and their money to
town.
Each interest attempts to superimpose its own synthetic definition that
lacks authenticity
or grounding in collective local experience.
“Sunflower
Festival” is not abstract in the same way as words like honor, liberty,
responsibility, etc. yet lacks context to ground it, nail it down to a
single
agreed upon definition or description. There are so many Sunflower
Festivals,
all different. “Festival,” as a general category rather than a specific
event,
is more abstract but still refers to an event rather than a slippery
concept. The
Mountainair Sunflower Festival, anchored in time and space, seems
sufficiently
specific but floats too. “Sunflower” is specific, grounded in context,
and
shared experience. We all know what sunflowers are, what they look
like, and
when they take over the
Why then does the
Mountainair Sunflower Festival float? The referent, sunflower, is
concrete,
easily recognized, and anchored in time and space: the last weekend in
August
in
Local residents,
not exclusively art folk and other outsiders, enjoy the Sunflower
Festival.
They decorate sunflower hats, dress funky, look forward to seeing
children’s
sunflower in storefront windows around town, listen to live music,
catch a few
demos, check out art exhibits, rummage through the offerings at the
library
book sale and yard sales about town, and listen to readers at the Poets
&
Writers Picnic. The do not think of either themselves or the day as
existing
solely to promote art, galleries, or the town.
For example, each
year I add more sunflower accessories to a sunflower shirt commissioned
several
years ago for festival wear and do as much of the above as I can before
the
heat drops me. Nor am I alone. Others turn out to wander the streets in
varied
and often sublimely inspired (sometimes even by sunflowers) attire.
Elementary
school students make Sunflower Art Projects that are displayed in
storefront
windows all across Mountainair’s 2-3 block “downtown.” Local artists
and artisans
turn out sunflower inspired work. Listeners assemble in the shade of
the
Shaffer Hotel garden to listen to regional and local poets and writers.
It’s no
coincidence that Dale Harris’ poem, “Manzano Sunflowers,” naturally
emerged as
a keynote for the occasion, be it festival, fiesta, day, fest,
celebration,
whatever. Why not just call it “Sunflower” (the day formerly known as a
festival)? Let’s speak of “sunflowering,” definition to float, perhaps
evolve,
and see where it takes us.
Over the past
eight years, the name has changed from Sunflower Arts Festival to
Sunflower
Festival to Sunflower Music Festival, back to Mountainair Sunflower
Festival, and,
most recently, to Sunflower Folk Art Festival. Only “sunflower” and, by
implication, “Mountainair” remain constant. Children’s Sunflower Art,
the
Poet’s and Writer’s Picnic, and varying degrees of sunflower themed art
remain
constant as well. Even the sunflowers themselves, real flowers not
signifiers,
cannot be depended on. The weather may have been wrong and sunflowers
peak
before or after the festival. More than once, the highway department
has cut
the roadsides the week before, removing the event’s best natural
advertisement.
Visitors may take sunflower aporia and erasure as personal affronts,
but locals
shrug and accept this as just another “Mountainair moment.” It’s still
Sunflower after all – whether or not the sunflowers show up.
Name changes add
to signifier float, each a layer in the palimpsest. The fault lies less
in
Sunflower than in persistent efforts to name, own, and promote it as
something
it is not. Despite hype promising a unique experience, daytrippers may
not find
advertising sufficiently motivating to warrant a hot, August day trip
to
Mountainair. Or, if they do, they can be disappointed when the event
does not
live up to its hype. Residents, old-timers, long term, and transplants,
however,
enjoy the day: their day, their festival.
Sunflower may not
fit the definition or meet requirements implied in the word,
“festival.” Many support Sunflower yet
agree with widely voiced concerns
about appropriating the word festival to add meaning and dimension not
inherent
in the event – and then advertising to match an ideal, perhaps mythic
Sunflower
Festival, rather than promoting the reality. The practice promises more
than
the Festival has, in past years, delivered. Daytrippers go home and
tell their
friends. Next year, past and potential daytrippers tune out sunflower
hype. There
may as well be a ripple effect: tuning out other Mountainair events.
No doubt, Sunflower’s
persisting informality owes much to its ad hoc origins. Initiated in
1999 by
local resident, Adolphine Carole “just because,” Sunflower 1 celebrated
the
opening of Art Alley. The original event was more happening than
organized
event. There were no committees, no sponsoring organization, no titles,
no
formal schedules, no flow charts, or anything smacking of
institutionalization.
Everybody had a good time; it filled the gap between Jubilee and fall
holidays.
Everyone agreed: the Sunflower Festival should become a regular event,
“improved” by organization, formal structure, and systematic promotion.
The next year,
more money and promotion poured into the mix. The controlling idea was
to
advertise heavily and turn it into a money making music festival. It
was still
fun, if not either a music festival or quite the success imagined by
its handlers
and self-appointed promoters. After two years (not counting Sunflower
1), the
Chamber of Commerce took over official sponsorship, dropping it this
year like
last year’s hot potato, Firecracker Jubilee.
Despite being
passed from hand to hand like an unwanted child, somehow Sunflower,
like its
hardy sunflower namesake, survives.
Whose festival is
it? Who owns it? Can any person or entity even own a festival,
especially such
a floater, with so many versions? The original event had a midwife but
no
owners. Individuals and organizations assumed, if not custody, then
proprietary
rights after the fact, usually without consulting festival users or
contributors. Now, in the wake of a backroom handoff by the Chamber to
the
Manzano Mountain Arts Council, it continues to have many absentee
owners (sponsors,
exploiters, followers, fans - and just those relishing an occasion to
put
flowers in their hair, on their hats, and elsewhere). Blissfully
unaware of
Derrida, floating signifiers, and possibly even Plato, maybe it’s time
for the
true owners to take back their festival.