in training

18.4 miles today. reasonably hefty pack as well - two bottles of wine, three pairs of socks, three pairs of underwear, two pairs of long pants, bottle of water, thermos of tea, scone (last three items consumed en route) - also delivered a painting, carried it for a couple miles at least, was flapping in the wind quite a bit, in one of those large flat portfolio bags - carried a bag of dirt for a couple pre-backpack miles, first stretch (potting soil for spring project, courtesy of steph) (merci)

one thing i had been worried about was the cold (don't like it - matthew was suggesting november, initially, and i was thinking "most people wouldn't worry about the cold but i really don't like being cold") - anyway, no longer care about the cold. pretty much constant snow flurries haunted me throughout the day but i was sweating away undistracted






















matthew pointed me to this distance-calculating site http://www.mapmyrun.com/, will try to keep better track of time now that i know it's easy to retrace the route






















we're both conscious of wanting to get our speed up, so we've got a bit of time at stations, rather than in-between-points and just always trying to get to shelter - i figure eight hours a day, if we can get from one sleepspot to the next, would be confidence-giving, can always slow down and look at things super-intently, especially if you know you can speed up and get there no problem

after dinner my sister-in-law says "there are going to be mountains where you're going, right?" and i'm like "no way, we're strolling from hotel to hotel on sidewalks" but there will be a little bit of up-down it looks like, another matthew link http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/d08343/nsd/f32600.html (altitude shown in meters just below the map)

probably makes for a better view. didn't think i'd like being up on the bridge, not thrilled about heights in general, but no rain, fantastic (pictures not allowed, really strange feeling that the most beautiful part of the day not captured by a collaborating device)

work in progress

if you click on #56, you'll see the beginning of the beginning
http://www.eriksanner.com/kisokaido_070407

invitation

last night sent out a link to this image










to a few people - and that was the next step in making "chess" happen - that picture has been in my head for a long time, years i guess, recently thinking things like "what if you sit with your backs to the table and throw paint over your shoulder behind you?" and "what if both 'players' have both black and white paint?" but that seems like later stuff, what you see is sort of the foundation thought

part of the reason i finally started blogging is that i'm receiving grant money for this project. so i figured it would be nice for new york city taxpayers to see what sort of work they're funding. yesterday created that illustration (which yes, took some time), wrote and sent this email:

------

http://www.eriksanner.com/chess

does this like something you''d be interested in doing? or learning more about anyway, but gut reaction to that image, should be enough maybe? new project, will be blogging about it, want to invite you, it will evolve, you can have a role in that or not, would very much like for you to be involved at some point. if interested, please let me know. thank you.

-erik

------

there are other people i want to invite to do this, more details on what "this" will or could entail to come

if you were at the cue how-to-present-your-art workshop with nina katchadourian, john zinsser, and mister fear-is-good.com, and i mentioned "doing a big collaboration thing with a bunch of people in a few months" then this is it and i haven't been able to find my little list of "must invite" names based on what i experienced during your presentation, please send me an email, especially whatsyername, you, the lady who was already doing something "chess" (but quite different, a maze)

and if you weren't at cue but that image makes you want to lurch up out of your chair, well, this isn't at the "open call" stage i don't think, but let me know and i'll say "let's talk! and let's do something" so i guess it is

knyc

so saturday was a bit of a pre-test. if there are sixty-nine stations and we're planning on walking from kyoto to tokyo in about a two-week timespan, would need to average five pieces per day (photographing or videoing the elements, whatever we see there, which can later be placed into locations in the pieces).

chose four pieces (thought was random to start at 56 but later in day remembered only completed 55 of 88 temples on shikoku pilgrimage and think this a bit related to that)

printed them out

grabbed my camera
















tried on some shoes but the only comfortable ones which fit and made me think "yeah, i can walk three hundred miles in these" (which is a bit of a nerve-wracking thought when shoe-shopping) also felt like mini-saunas and matthew had said "breathability is key" so i didn't feel like blowing ninety dollars on little foot-ovens
















figured back in the day it was barefoot or sandals, anyway, right? started walking, print in one hand, camera in the other
















at the embassy suites hotel (where diva has been held last couple of years at least anyway) and they had plants





















if you look at #56, that's what i started with, you'll notice trees














so these will be an option for that lower-right part of that image





















and i'll try to have a working test up by friday, to see if this is something i want to do, or keep working, evolving, changing this project

lucid writing

one-hundred words about the kisokaido project:

my project will involve walking from kyoto to tokyo, a trek of roughly 330 miles. hiroshige’s series of woodblock prints “the 69 stations of the kisokaido line” (1834-1842) set along the same route will provide the compositional basis for my work. i intend to make digital collages, replacing all the elements in each of his prints with photographic and video imagery of the same geography present day. the individual pieces will subsequently be combined through time. for example, the background of #43 could be paired with elements from foreground of #32. this dynamic collage will be viewable online.

under five-hundred words about the kisokaido project (you may notice some similarities in the opening paragraph):

my project will involve walking from kyoto (the ancient capital of japan) to tokyo (the modern capital), a trek of roughly 330 miles. hiroshige’s series of woodblock prints “the 69 stations of the kisokaido line” (1834-1842) set along the same route will provide the compositional basis for my work. i intend to make digital collages, replacing all the elements in each of his prints with photographic and video imagery of the same geography present day. the individual pieces will subsequently be combined through time. for example, the background of #43 could be paired with elements from foreground of #32. this dynamic collage will be viewable online.

when approaching artmaking in general, or any specific project, the questions “what is timeless?” and “what is contemporary?” are always considerations. how can i make something relevant to people today, interesting to me, which pays homage to artists of prior generations?

currently, when initiating any new project, i also have a few basic ground rules, which could be broken, but more often than not i adhere to: 1) it will be a two-dimensional piece of visual art; 2) it will utilize technology to create a work which would not have been feasible in 1971 (the year of my birth); 3) it will constantly change, so although the work will remain identifiable, any time it is seen the viewer will see something which has likely never been seen before (by anybody) and will likely never be seen again (by anybody). as far as we know nothing in the universe is static, and the same can be said about clouds or a waterfall, which do indeed provide me with inspiration, but this is part of my still-developing criteria which enable me to paint despite having grown up at a time when paint appeared to be marginal and irrelevant, an era of atari and star wars and m*a*s*h.

when considering the kisokaido trek, and hiroshige’s work, the following seemed pertinent:

- hiroshige’s work was largely accessible, mass-printed for widescale distribution, not hidden in galleries or museums seen only by a select few (which led me to say “this project will be viewable online”);

- what he basically did, i believe, is firstly observe, and secondly, present his observations (of what was there, what was beautiful) to those who couldn’t take that kind of time or pay that kind of attention;

- the method of woodblock printing involves blocking out very clearly-defined areas of form and color in space, layered one on top of the other.

it then occurred to me to use whatever is currently visible on the kisokaido trek as elements in collages based on the composition of his works.

i walked over eleven miles today

first lessons = hydrate; take a good map; be able to change camera battery or memory card while walking in the rain; this (kisokaido) is achievable

kisokaido = nakasendo

don't know why more than one name but that's presumably learnable. anyway seem to be same thing.

so recently i got a grant, after applying to several different ones, and there was a reception, and i met another artist, who agreed that the best part of applying for stuff is that it forces you to articulate what it is you are doing or want to do and helps refine your thinking and your projects. monday are two deadlines i've been looking forward to for months and months. kisokaido seems like a perfect fit for both. i've been really into building real-world pieces with dynamic digital components, both request a more web-based approach, usually i would just say "that's not what i want to do" and forget about it. but kisokaido has been beckoning web-aspect...

anyway can't do everything and right now will go take pictures and walk in manhattan, related to kisokaido, back-thinking to update another time

eyesore

your-garbage-is-my-gold, all familiar with that, just hammered home to me again...
http://www.lmcc.net/art/programs/2007.3.27reconstruction/index.html

third paragraph states that orange cones are part of a disruptive presence. i beg to differ! they are a benign and divine omnipresent source of aesthetic pleasure. by the fourth paragraph they (to be fair, along with many other glorious manifestations of humans altering the planet) are referred to as "eyesores."

that makes my gut sore. i'm a huge fan of traffic cone aesthetics and believe that traffic cones are the closest artifact we have to art, but i haven't proven that yet. if ever an open call had my name on it - well, the obstacle is the same, how to make art about something which is already so close to being art in its own right? ten years of thousands of traffic cone photos and still haven't been able to crack the medium-isn't-the-message puzzle. that doesn't make any sense. haven't been able to find a form which does them justice, is probably what i mean. photos don't really get the coneness of cones. painting is old. i saw a sculpture in chelsea a few months(?) ago in a window composed of chopped up traffic cones but they were just used as raw material to make a rhinoceraus or whatever it was - not an homage, i don't think, to the raw faster-than-thought power of perceiving a lone traffic cone guarding absolutely nothing.

one final source of irritation - don't get me wrong, i'm thrilled about lmcc, what they do, that particular open call specifically, etc. - i guess we're all too close to something, like if you try to talk to a yankees fan about arod maybe - anyway, there is at present a startling influx of yellow traffic cones in manhattan. not orange - yellow. a small percentage of the total but so many of them are new and shiny and so obviously different - balm for my city-sore eyes.

maybe just one to start

painting, not project. "painting" i mean. christine said i might have to let go of paint eventually. yeah yeah yeah, that's been niggling at me for years. ok, so a spring somethingorother, that's the other project still on the brainburner and not yet manifesting itself in the physical universe. sequel to "autumn leaves" and "winter branches" but still not clear - growth? bud? here's what it looks like right now:

ummm, i need to order a new projector bulb, do you think if i project sunlight onto seeds in earth they'll sprout? that's the first part of the plan, get some kind of mesh, and fill these babies up with the stuff of life... but it was getting overwhelming so i'm going to start with just one. this week i think.

and hope to buy hiking boots tomorrow night, so can do a little practice/training walk saturday, and see how much training i'd need to do for nakasendo. which, by the way, like everything under the lamp, has been done:
http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/kisokaido/kisokaido_road_map.htm

nakasendo

matthew wants to walk from kyoto to tokyo. me too. this coming autumn. he doesn't want to be too conspicuous. me, i want to do an art project, otherwise can't self-justify the time/expense, but can figure out a way to incorporate that and still have meaningful friend conversations, also not make spectacle of selves. so, that's another project in initial pre-stages, really. nothing exists yet, just this vague thought of pictures or postcards or computer and harddrive or video camera, maybe people can print out stuff at home or i can mail things, instructions perhaps for how-to-assemble-this-new-media-installation with your own projector, computer, or dvd player, should this stuff stay secret until i act on it? can't do everything

oh yeah, if you google "nakasendo" you'll see it's a thing, been done, in the past, this walk from kyoto to tokyo, not as random as sounds

and if you read a little about it you'll probably know more than me because i haven't really spent any time doing that yet