Juniper Douglas // In The Garden of Clay
A Review by The Happy Children
Photos by Casey Carlson
In The Garden of Clay was the debut theatrical performance of Juniper Douglas, a brand new Twin Cities performance art collective. Juniper Douglas let the world hear their first piece of work; a music video for the original song, Wood Rose, released under Subaquatic Records. When melded together with the enticing visuals, the video acted as a promotional material for the live performance of In The Garden of Clay, which used much of the same imagery throughout. The video and song are traditionally gorgeous and breathtaking which makes the piece highly effective at hooking people into the Juniper Douglas mythology.
Although we were now desperate to be a part of their world up until the night of the performance, it was unclear what to expect. Having pre-existing relationships with the members of Juniper Douglas, they let us in on the back story of their work. We knew they were talented young artists who equally share a massive passion and drive for their projects, however, we must be honest and express that we did not have the highest expectation from them, solely based off of their age and life place.
They asked us (The Happy Children) to record a demo of one of our songs at no charge, we sort of shrugged off the offer. We still saw ourselves in a different place in terms of our artistic impact on our community. However, after watching the music video for Wood Rose, experienced In The Garden of Clay and observed the viewer’s perception of the power in the creative youth, they have blown our expectations out of the water.
We are now not alone in perceiving Juniper Douglas as a serious artistic force in our community; one we look up to and respect. These artistic minds are not kids doing “kid’s work”, the artists are driven and intelligent people who we now expect a very high level of product from. Like us, they are sometimes annoyingly obsessive about their projects, which will take them to a successful place, in whatever direction their determination manifests towards.
