Day Hmmm?

 
I'm not really sure if any of my three followers are reading this anymore, but today was a pretty eventful day! I've started a footprint study...so I took a walk today to look for and photograph animal prints in the snow. Below are some of the cool ones I found.















What else did I do today? I finished a sick drawing of some clouds I photographed on the way to Sante Fe. I finished a collaborative sculpture project (pics to follow). Also, the exhibition for Art on the Land begins Friday February 12th at 5pm! So everyone be there!

While I was on a walk today I saw this pueblo style house that looked completely abandoned. All the windows were broken in and there was no door. I was really curious and wanted to go check it out so I walked over to the barbed wire fence and pushed it down so I could climb over. I ended up snagging my pants a little bit, but I made it over. Once I was on the other side I walked to the right toward the driveway and realized there was an opening in the fence about ten feet down from where I had climbed over. I felt stupid.

Here is one last picture that baffles me a little. It is a tiny frozen sphere of snow that somehow maintained its shaped after falling off a tree or something onto the ground...miraculous!

For you Nick

 

Sante Fe

 

Sante Fe. Went to Georgia O'Keeffe's house. She transformed an old peublo into a beautifully understated living space. She had an interesting taste for interior decorating, mixing elements of the natural world with contemporary design. Sadly, we couldn't take any photographs, but let's just say the experience made me want to leave home and find my own decrepit New Mexican adobe home to refurbish.

We saw a beautiful gorge (much bigger than Queche), part of the Rio Grande river, the "echo" dome and downtown Sante Fe. We also visited a peublo that is still occupied by native americans. They have a bunch of little shops set up to make some money off of the tourists that come to see their home. I stopped at a tea house and was invited to come sit by the fire. There was a little kitten in a kitty bed next to the fire that I started to pet...adorable. The family that ran the tea house was very nice and talked to us for a little while. I ordered a caramel apple cider. Yum!

We went to some amazing museums in the area. The coolest one was in this really old building called the Governor's Palace because the governor used to live there back in the day. It was a history museum about the southwest and New Mexico and it had some hella tight artifacts. My favorite things to look at were the wagons and the buggys. They also had a lot of wooden religious figurines of Christ being crucified and various saints. They have a very distinctive style to them.

Anyway here are some pictures of the landscape. Enjoy!

Day Thirteen

 
The other day, Eric took a few of us to see some ram heads from a recent hunt. At the same time, we ended up seeing a pair of elk skeletons whose antlers got caught together in a mating fight causing them to die intertwined. One of my fellow artists and I were struck by this and brilliantly decided to respond by spending twelve hours tied together. We spent the entire day with a scarf and a belt around our necks...from 9:40 a.m. to 9:40 p.m.





And here is a picture of the marvelous great sand dunes of Colorado. Spiritual.

Day Eleven

 
It was sunny again today...hooray. Yesterday it was very gloomy. You couldn't see the tops of the mountains because they were shrouded in clouds and it looked like it was snowing up there.



Today I worked on my large scale project out in this remote hay covered field. I used the hay to make a diamond pattern. It catches the sun rays best near sunset. I still have a lot of work to do on it.



We took a group photo...very cute. I nearly missed the photo too because I forgot about it and scurried back to my room after dinner and no one realized I was gone :o



I'm also working on a neato 2D drawing that kind of relates to my poop experience. I'll have more photos later.

Day Ten

 
I am still working on my poop sculptures and it is a really strange experience. I thought I was above the whole disgust with poop, but it is starting to get to me a little. I keep thinking, "Have a washed my hands enough. Should I clean them one more time? Are there parts of my body I have missed?" Poop has a very strong stigma which is very funny considering what it is...just some water, a little dead bacteria, a little live bacteria, dead cells, mucus and fiber! People come into to contact with all that stuff regularly in many forms other than poop. But enough of that stuff. I still find it a little gross as much as I want to explore it.

I have a drawing to do for my sculpture too. So I should get to it.
More later.

Here is the finished product.

Day Seven Day Eight Day Nine

 
I've had a little dip in energy both creative and physical so excuse me for not posting very much these past few days. Today has been rather slow as well. I needed a chance to recoup and get my act back together. I ran/walked this afternoon and I ran into these two yellow lab puppies. They always meet me and end up running with me. Yesterday, they ran almost six miles with me!! I love them. It is nice to know they will be waiting for me.

I haven't been too happy with my last two drawings mostly because I wasn't fully excited about them so I didn't formulate and carry out my ideas as well as I hoped. I will post some pictures a little later.

Right now I am working on a volumetric sculpture out of poop and mud...kind of gross, but it will be awesome if it works. I gathered a bunch of poop in the field and added mud/dirt and put them both in a bag. I absolutely love the feeling of the mud here. It is very smooth and malleable so it feels almost like clay, thus the idea for my poop/mud sculpture. When I got back to the ranch I added very hot water to the bag and started mushing it all together. I'm going to let it soak through lunch and see what happens. I am hoping the poop will get soft....ew right?

It is difficult to be here with all of these young aspiring artists. There is definitely competition going on whether stated or not. I think it is a good thing, but it is hard to keep myself level headed and putting my best effort forward. I'm experiencing a lot of self doubt. The dynamic certainly is not super competitive and aggressive which is good. I see the it more as a mode of building off of other artists' successes and failures. It is a good opportunity for me and everyone else.

That is all for now except some pictures.

Shadow work



Right as the sun finally rises up over the mountains, there is this initial moment of intense illumination.



Almost all the snow is melted now, but I saw a distinct fetus in the snow...do you?

Day Six

 
Today will be a mystery to all. "What happened on day six?" they will say. Some things are just better left unsaid.

"What happened on day six?" they will say. Some things are just better left unsaid. Today will be a mystery to all.

Some things are just better left unsaid. Today will be a mystery to all. "What happened on day six?" they will say.

Day Five

 
Day five, day five, day five...I can't believe it is day five! It is both incredible how much and how little work I am getting done given the amount of time I spend on art every day. I am making so much more work than I usually do in a semester because I only have to devote myself to art, but I feel like there is so so so so much time and possibility and I want to be making more! I really hope that I an tap into this energy when I am back at school. It might take a little more work, but it is well worth it.

I realize that I haven't really talked much about what the other students are doing which might give a greater perspective of what is going down here at Trinchera. Everyone has a very different style and vision. One guy has been very interested by the man made trinkets and decorations inside and outside the house. It is kind of ironic that he came to this environment just overflowing with beautiful nature and ends up focusing his art on the artificial world. It is definitely not a bad thing though because his art is very intriguing. Right now he is working with the diamond shaped Native American pattern found on many of the blankets, carpets and chairs in the ranch house. Looks promising.

Eric brought up an interesting topic about making environmental art your own. He says, "Things in nature are so intrinsically beautiful that it can be a struggle to make environmental art your own special creation." I hadn't really ever considered this before, but now that I think about I have probably made many artworks from nature that were uninspiringly dissimilar from their original form without even realizing it. It seems like an important thing to keep in mind if you want your art to be something worth while.

Today has been an excellent bonding day for everyone. After dinner, we took our first break since we have gotten here. People were playing pool and sitting around the fire talking. It made me realize how little I branch out at Middlebury. Everyone was talking about all these people in my grade whom I have never even met or heard of. It was crazy! There aren't even that many people in my grade. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to get to know these people on the trip. I love it.

I saw a coyote today and he let me follow him snapping photos for quite a while. I couldn't believe how close he got to me. He must not have seen me. I was out climbing trees and taking pictures at dusk because we are supposed to get some shots of clouds and I liked the residue the fading sunset was casting upon them. I'll post them!

Here we go...





:)

Day Four

 
Today was not all that intriguing in the sense that I didn't get to go outside as much as I would have liked. I spent the morning finishing my sculpture which turned out really great. I made a long necklace out of plant stems and cattail fuzzzz and hung it on this amazing old tree trunk.



In the afternoon I began working on a drawing due tomorrow about patterns in nature. We had to take about a dozen photographs of patterns that interested us from the outside world. Then we were to choose three or four to layer in a drawing. I took three pictures of a section of soil zooming in a little closer with each shot. I'll have a picture of it up later tomorrow.

For my next project, I am thinking about making a pair of very large earrings to hang on a tree...jewelry for nature. Man, I am enjoying being here and just being able to focus on art. Well, this was a short one...I'll be sure to share more tomorrow :) :) :)

To end, here is a cool Indian sculpture made from sheets of metal!



VIDEO

Day Three

 
After breakfast this morning, the crew headed off the ranch to do some heavy duty gathering of plants and shrubs and logs. We drove down this road behind the house. There are a bunch of these "chunky, clunky" dirt roads going off in all different directions from the house. Apparently a lot of the people who work at the ranch live down one road or the other. The chef is a pretty interesting man and he has some artistic background too! When we first arrived at the ranch, he greeted us and told us all about his ice sculptures. Anyway, we stopped somewhere along the path and everyone jumped out and began chopping things down. We each had some kind of saw or clippers of different sizes so we brought back things both big and small. When everyone had their shrubs and flowers and stalks bundled together on the ground, the space looked like the beginnings of an over sized apothecary store. I left my battery in the charger so I wasn't able to take any pictures of what we collected, but it looked something like this:


I will surely have my camera ready for the sculptures we end up making from the materials.

I've been thinking about the questions I asked myself about environmental art the other day. I'm bothered by the fact that man's reconstruction of nature can sometimes be more interesting than what nature makes itself. However, even if this is true, the real miracle lies with the earth. Otherwise we wouldn't have the leaves and the pods and the thistles to work with. Perhaps part of the allure of working with nature is that it gives the artist and the viewer a feeling of power over the earth. Through environmental art man can produce mysterious and awe-inspiring natural creations as well.

Time is really strange out here. I was a little late to our afternoon class meeting because I was up at the chapel gathering these little pod-ish seeds that come out of the pine cones. The other day I was talking with my sister about how sometimes a person loses the ability to get lost in something as they grow from childhood into adulthood. I'm finding that this just doesn't apply on the ranch. The days just pass on by because I am so entranced by the possibilities of this place and of my art. I don't think I've spent this much time crouched over scouring the dirt for "treasures" in quite a while. It makes me feel very happy and healthy and fresh.



Above is a drawing I did of the dancing leaves I was talking about...pretty cute. And below is a strange little sculpture I started today. Those are the pods I collected today. I also found some balls of sap and bird poop which I originally thought was another seed of some sort. It wasn't until I got back to the ranch and tried to string them that I realized they were tiny digested beads of chewed grass pieces. :)



I can't think of anything else too exciting that happened today except that I forgot to visit horse for the second day in a row. Perhaps our relationship won't be as strong as I originally planned. Oh my, I did see a stampede of elk today. There had to be at least two hundred of them just sprinting across the grass fields. I can't even explain what it was like...absolutely beautiful.

Day Two

 
I was up early early early this morning because I desperately wanted to go for a mountain run, but it was so dark. The sun really doesn't come up over the peaks until around 6:30 which seems a lot later than over on the east coast. Eric said that maybe this was because the time zone encompasses such a wide area of the west. Also, we are really high up here...something like 7,000 or 8,000 feet so the sun must have to work extra hard to reach us.

My run was amazing, but definitely a lot harder than usual considering the altitude. I left when it was still dawn, but when I came back the pinks and oranges of the sunset were just above the mountains. The air feels so fresh here and the sky is so clear and filled with sunshine. During the daytime hours it is about 25-35 degrees, but we only have to wear a shirt, fleece and hat because the sun is so warm.

I need to do a post about the lodge we are staying in because the art and collectibles are ridiculous. Forbes was apparently very interested in motorcycles and boats because he literally has thousands of them in every corner of this place. And there are soooo many paintings and works of art everywhere. When you first see it all, it is just too much to take in and you end up categorizing all of it into rooms and then move onto the next room. Eventually, I've slowed my eyes down and taking a good look at some of the work. You have to see it. It is wild.

MORE LATER

So everyone has been getting their drawing and pictures and objects together today. There has been a lot going on. People have been bringing a lot of bones back which is totally exciting me. I would love to find some bird ribs that I can use to make jewelry. My first great idea is to make a line of natural jewelry and photograph it. I have already found this bulbous twisted old tree trunk that I want to hang the necklaces on for my photographs.

I'm finishing up a drawing of the mountains. I used a technique similar to stippling except I used a little tree shaped form like this ^ instead of tiny dots. I am liking it so far for a beginning drawing. I haven't drawn anything in a very long time except for rough sketches and such. Hopefully, I get some drawings that I really like...maybe something I can frame!!

The most interesting thing that happened today was dissecting a cattail. I want to videotape it the next time I do it because the seedy things just explode from the stem.
Anyway, I think I am going to go to sleep soon because I am absolutely exhausted. Below are some more photos from yesterday. Enjoy!




And one from today!

Day One

 
Art on the Land has officially begun. Today was everyone's first full day on the ranch and lucky for us the weather was spectacular. There is far less snow on the ground then any of us expected and the sun just warms us all right up. We can walk around outside for hours with just a fleece and hat on.

We started the day with a walk to survey the land surrounding the ranch house. We walked aimlessly for a while, but eventually our destination ended up being the chapel on the side of the mountain. It is this beautiful Mexican inspired stucco spiritual place. You open the doors of the chapel to find a a view of the mountain range impaired by a large organic wooden cross. Everything was made out of wood from the pews to the hanging Christ figures to the pulpit. It felt so earthy like it was a chapel to worship mother nature.

After lunch and unpacking, we set out again for our own personal exploration. I went behind the ranch house and experienced both the frozen and liquid water of a small stream I found there. Parts of the stream were heavily frozen and others were ready to crack into a million pieces so it was thrilling to scoot around not knowing whether or not I was on steady ground.

I found myself taking lots of pictures of leaves using the macro setting on my digital.



This happens to be my favorite photograph of the day. The leaves curl and crinkle in the most peculiar ways...especially the little leaves. So I decided to sit and draw a set of several long oval leafies that twisted as if they were contorting bodies in a wild dance. I was so still and quiet that birds did not notice I was there and came very close to me. I kept hearing the hopping of a robin through the snow and brush, but he never came close enough for a picture.

Later, I met a horse whom I am determined to continue visiting, perhaps everyday if time allows it. He is black and white and rather wild I think because he didn't have any "horse equipment" on him and he didn't expect sugar cubes or some other treat like most trained horses. Eventually, he was gnawing on hay that was close enough for me to give him a good scratch. Although he didn't move away, he seemed pretty neutral about the whole experience. It is one of my goals to get to know him or her better by the end of the trip.

As far as the art experience goes, I am learning how much art and life can go hand in hand. I am realizing more and more just how much more intriguing and exciting art can be if it is your life. I am so interested in creating things, but over the last several years I have experienced a huge dip in creativity and natural self-expression. I have this notion of what my art should be and my work is often very controlled and ruled by fear of failure. I am hoping that this trip will help me learn to let go of my self-consciousness so that I can grow as an artist and really develop my love for art.

We watched a documentary about the work of Andy Goldsworthy and it was inspiring to watch his integration of imagination and art and nature and life. His work is so simple. It reminds me of the types of awe-inspiring things I hoped to find as I explored the woods around my home as a child. I always wanted to find some magical little dwelling that someone had secretly built in order for another to suddenly find it on a walk through the forest.

There is something very funny about man acting as mother nature. Goldsworthy tries to show that the types of things he creates happen in nature all the time, but for some reason they are quite different coming from a man. Are they more beautiful or exciting than the beauty that nature creates itself? What is it about environmental art that is so extraordinary to the viewer?