Viva Los Turistas!

So much more coming soon.... (Haro Strait with Mt. Baker in the background).

What greeted me upon my arrival on Bainbridge Island

The New Earthworks

Tyler Green has a new post over at Modern Art Notes regarding the "new land art." I've seen references to Agnes Denes' Tree Mountain before and it's worth posting here. The "new" earthworks are more profound in a way - not as destructive but emphasizing the environment and the changing views of the earth since the early 1970s. My brother Tim, a landscape architect, and I are talking about making one - more along this vein not that of Michael Heizer.

From the website: "Eleven thousand trees were planted in a complex mathematical pattern by eleven thousand people from around the world, to be maintained for 400 years. One of the largest environmental reclamation sites in the world, Tree Mountain, created from refuse material from a gravel pit, was declared a national monument to serve future generations with a meaningful legacy. Dedicated in 1996 by the President of Finland, dignitaries, and participants from around the world."

Ten of my favorite images from the Pacific Northwest

Frank Gohlke, Visitors on the rim of Mount St. Helens, Washington, 1990


Frank Gohlke, Ten minutes later (after an earthquake and landslide several hundred feet below), 1990


Shawn Records from "La Playa"


Lee Friedlander, 1997


Robert Adams, Southwest from the South Jetty, Clatsop County, Oregon, 1990


Carleton Watkins, Multnomah Falls, 1867


Joel Sternfeld, Exhausted Renegade Elephant, Washington, 1979


Stephen Shore, U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon, July 21, 1973


Maria Harper, Untitled, 1998


James Luckett, Shore, 2001

Home

The concept of home has eluded me since moving to Indiana. When strangers ask where I am from, I give one of two answers: "Do you mean where my cats live or where I long to return?" or "I am currently living in Indiana but it is NOT my home." I started carrying this scrap of paper (yes, small pieces of folded paper run in the family - see the Dad post below) in my wallet so I could break it out and use it as an explanation. When doing the Prairie Creek Reservoir cake float, my wallet fell out of my pocket and landed in the water ruining most of the paper contents. So now the Abramovic and Leonard quotes are retired but remain nonetheless relevant.



Is home where I grew up and have still to this day, spent more time living than anywhere else? If my mom didn't live there, I would never return so I hardly call Idaho home anymore. It is "where I am from" but it is not where I long to be.



Is home the first place I moved from Idaho and will return to in some capacity later on in life because I loved living there and have some of the best memories of that "place"? I tested that out in Tucson early this summer by saying "I am coming back home" and I think it could still be true.



Is home where I feel like I belong and want to return to daily but know that is not possible at this point in my life? See the second Zoe Leonard quote above i.e. is it even home anymore?



If "home is where the source is" then it is the Pacific Northwest. When I visit PDX, Astoria, Seattle... all of this is HOME. The quote I feel most strongly about is the handwritten one above where "home is me." I have had an Oregon license and license plate for 11 years now. I have only lived in Oregon for five of those years. I used to call it denial, but now I call it hope. Before the fake cake floats began, I had two vacations planned for the summer... Arizona and the Pacific NW. In a few days, I am leaving for my other home where fake cakes become secondary and experiencing the familiar and the brand new primary. I've been lucky this summer... two visits back "home" in a matter of three months and I still come back to where my cats live. Obviously it is important to me to include a cake in each of these locales. If I had more resources and added three more cakes to the list, the missing locations that have meaning but are not represented are a river, a hot springs, and a lake in Idaho, a beach in Miami, and Coronado and La Jolla Coves in San Diego, California. Alas... another project and another time...

From the Post Office Box Today

One thing I love about the postcard aspect of this project is that I, in turn, begin to receive things from others in the mail. My Dad wins the prize for today's entry:



He also sent this image from Gregory Barsamian entitled Cake Walk from 1997. Check out this link which shows the very same cake lit by strobes and moving like a flip book.

Yves Klein hated birds (yet imitated one convincingly in Leap into the Void)

Yesterday while sitting in the White House Cafe in New Harmony, IN where I went to pick up my artwork, I read Peter Schjeldahl's review on the Yves Klein retrospective currently on display at the Hirshhorn Museum. Klein has fascinated me since I saw another of his retrospectives at the Reina Sofia in Madrid in 1995. My Spanish was minimal and I didn't understand most of the text alongside the artworks so I came home and researched him extensively. I can't say I love his work but I do like his concepts - inventing International Klein Blue (IKB), serving blue cocktails at an opening that turned everyone's urine blue, convincing the post office to take one of his IKB stamps as an official way to send his announcements, using fire as a mode of making art, and the fine art of photo collage with his Leap into the Void.


Klein's Blue Monochrome, 1960

Schjeldahl writes: "He hated birds, he said, 'because they tried to bore holes in my greatest and most beautiful work.'" That work being the sky... and to claim it as his own is one of the most egotistical statements I have read in a very long time. I keep thinking about the bird as interruption and can't help but feel that Klein missed the point.

Once when viewing James Turrell's sky space at the Live Oak Meeting House in Houston, TX, I saw an airplane and it's trail mark the perfect blue. I have never forgotten my friend Kelli's description of watching a balloon float by one evening while staring into the void. Those are the moments that make that artwork memorable when an entity that shouldn't be there momentarily makes an entrance.



I think John Baldessari, whose retrospective is currently on display on the West Coast, would agree.


John Baldessari's Bird, Airplane, Bird

The opposite effect can also occur when the sky is obliterated by the birds as seen in Lukas Felzmann's photographs.



I've always loved this image and for a very long time, it was my desktop wallpaper on my laptop. Then one day my hard drive crashed and I lost the name of the person who made it. It's title currently exists as "0019E95D.JPG" so if anyone ever sees it and can give me the full documentation, I would be grateful to give credit where it is due. This sky interruption reminded me of Kelli's visit to Turrell's piece yet also of another beautiful ending...



to the Truman Show. Both these images show the moments where truth becomes a facade. The balloon's shadow gives it away and Truman on his quest to sail into the horizon, ultimately ran into it with his sailboat. I would never claim the sky as my own creation or sign it as Klein did at the age of 19. I am far more interested in those "holes" that Klein despised.

More underwater camera action at Niagara Falls

... no cake this time (it was too damaged and not worth bringing on the Maid of the Mist boat tour). Top of Horseshoe Falls at Terrapin Point:



Cheesy tourist photo (thanks Marni!):



My favorite from the whole camera of American and Bridal Veil Falls due to the fact that the color looks so 1970s:



Horseshoe Falls from Maid of the Mist boat tour:



The "water, color" was repulsive at the bottom of the Falls:

14.25 hours & 856 miles later

At 9 AM yesterday I was standing in line buying a croissant at a French cafe in Brandon, VT. At 11:33 PM, I made it back to Indiana. This belongs under the category of things I didn't know I had in me - marathon driving (only stopped for a total of 40 minutes along the way). I kept thinking three things around Hour 12: 1) I have Blue Ledge Vermont cheese and it won't be cold in the morning! 2) I woke up to Frida the puppy licking my face and I want to see my kitties before I go to bed. 3) How different is this really from a trans-Pacific flight from LAX to Auckland (and then tack on Christchurch after customs)?

I'm taking it easy this week but it all begins again next week when I head back "home." I have a couple posts in mind before then though - what else was I thinking about on the long drive back?

"water, color (not watercolor)" - Li Rader

Silver Bay, Lake George, NY

Fake Cake Float: Silver Bay, Lake George, NY & Lake Champlain, Shoreham, VT

Happy 4th of July (with Stella Andrews).



We took a cable ferry over Lake Champlain into NY today to visit Li's friends Candace and Frank who own three cabins on Lake George. In addition to floating in this beautiful locale, the cake also took a ride on the pontoon across the lake to watch a family dive off 13' rocks.



With a little help from my friends, Li and Frida (the 11 week half chihuahua and miniature poodle who weighs less than 3 pounds).



Li and Angel Food.



The lovely environs at Silver Bay that inspired swimming in the cold water and naps on the hammock. This place reminds me so much of Northern Idaho not counting the rock walls and archery field next to the cabins.



Lake Champlain's "water, color" did not prove to be as enticing as Lake George but here it is at Li's parent's place in Shoreham. Lake Champlain, by the way, is known as the "sixth Great Lake" so I did indeed cover ALL the territory if anyone ever asks me.



All this cake floating inspired "creamies" along with everyone else in Ticonderoga, NY at 5 PM today. This is a MEDIUM maple frozen yogurt with chocolate sprinkles. We did not see anyone order a large but I would love to know how on earth it would possibly stay upright in a cone.

I had no idea....

that Angel Food Cake was traditional 4th of July fare. I brought the fake angel food cake because the shape was appropriate - Lake Champlain is known for rocks that look like they have holes drilled out of the center. Now I've unknowingly become even more relevant (gotta love it when that happens).

Fake Cake Float: Lake Ontario - Durand Eastman State Park, Irondequoit, NY

Marni taking the fake cake for a walk:



Just as pretty though a little bit colder than Lake Erie:

George Eastman House

Rochester... home of Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Ragu spaghetti sauce. The main reason why I visited the George Eastman House was to visit his former living quarters which contained a taxidermy elephant head:



Of course no early 20th century mansion would be complete without exotic animal foot ashtrays:



Here's Eastman's suicide note on display for all to see:



There's even a fake dessert - Eastman had a great love of pie:




The Technology Room was amazing with Alfred Stieglitz's camera next to his image of the Steerage and a ton of toy cameras.



Later that evening, my friend Christine and I returned to watch a new documentary on Robert Frank's Americans called An American Journey. The director Philippe Séclier went back to several of the locations and even found some of the people Frank photographed in 1956. It was far more interesting than the never before screened film that Frank made with some students at VSW in 1971 that followed. I try so hard to like his movies but the motion sickness factor always runs high.

Fake Cake Float: Giraffes & Franzie's Backyard, Webster, NY

Marni is creating a project where she has to pet atypical animals and we had every intention of visiting the Buffalo Zoo prior to Niagara Falls to pet a giraffe. She did some research to discover that if we brought crackers that would work if they were near the fence. We learned the night before that the county fair has giraffes that will wrap their tongues around your arm when you feed them carrots. That sounded far more promising than the zoo and we opted not to go. We did, however, visit a fantastic craft store where I made Marni pet a giraffe in some capacity until she waits for September's fair.



In turn she had me hold a "gerbil":



I also did a little diorama research and know what to purchase for desert ground cover:



and learned a little bit about painting by numbers:



I also had plans to meet my old friend from grad school, Franzie Weldgen and his wife Shannon and daughter Zazie in Webster, NY. When I learned that they had a giraffe kiddie pool, I knew the 3-tier had to be repaired and thanks to Franzie's glue gun, it held together for one more shoot. Then I dropped the topper (so ignore the cracked neck, missing elbow, and hand realignment) and meet Zazie Weldgen with her new pool:



In addition to giraffes, Zazie and Marni have something in common... they are both excellent cake wranglers:







Right before leaving, Zazie gave me the tour of her painting studio that she shares with her dad and produced this brilliant replacement topper for the 3-tier:



Next up: A taxidermy elephant and suicide letter in the George Eastman House and Lake Ontario...