medium

one of the things i agonized over, for years and years and years, was what kind of art to pursue, believing you can't do anything, so better to focus on something. directing movies, making paintings, writing novels, composing music - all were attractive, all seemed to have a big obstacle in the form of "ok, so how am i going to get to the point where that's putting food on the table?"

and there was a weight, a history of towering giants, all those heroes and dols who preceded and built those mediums and it was very hard to ask "can i add anything to that?"

anyway eventually i accepted painting as the strongest call. it took years and years, but it happened, i made a commitment of sorts. so why am i bringing this up right now if this is an old query?

two big reasons: 1) look at me now (both "right now" and "these days") and 2) the pull of other things still pops up, it's not the overwhelming daily dilemma that it once was, but it's still there.

so right now i'm blogging. and the two projects i'm working on, chess and the nakasendo - i'm not painting with either of them right now. yes conceptually i view them as paintings. and chess involved a lot of painting, by me and other people. but right now all i'm doing is finishing up the video rendering and trying to get it shown, approaching landlords of vacant storefronts and saying "hey, how about letting me show my piece here? it will look great and you'll be doing something the neighborhood may appreciate." video rendering isn't painting. nakasendo is even more different. pretty early on, became aware that i might not ever actually use paint in the project. could figure out a way to inject it if i wanted to, but seemed forced, contrived, not a natural fit. do i want to be so dogmatic that i have to paint, is that going to be one of my rules, even if the piece doesn't seem to need it? no. so, not painting and not painting, right now, the projects i'm pursuing. then we have the right now right now, blogging away, i could be drawing or painting, right? so there's a disconnect between my reality (doing new media) and how i think of what i am or want to be or wanted to be (a painter). just semantics? face the reality of "new media artist" and accept it - hey, i'm not a painter, i do use paint, but i'm a new media artist?

see, it starts leading you back to the initial dilemma. if i'm a new media artist, i can use sound, right? i could do sound work. in fact, there's an audio thing i've been wanting to do for months. i keep putting it off because i'm not sure it fits, and there are other visual projects, even painterly ones which i also want to do - but it's a candidate for post-chess post-nakasendo, this sound thing.

and then there's the physicality of chess, and the physicality of paint in general. paintings take space. you need space to make them, space to show them, space to store them. how much space does an mp3 take? what about a dvd, staying visual? all of a sudden it's a decade ago and instead of "but if i want to make movies, film is really expensive and i don't have access to the editing equipment" it's "hey, i could spend a lot more time actually developing the work further than just trying to get it shown if i made movies instead of paintings." there are some pretty powerful arguments all around - so what do i want? and who am i? and where are we all going anyway? isn't painting dead? are there going to be paintings when we're the borg?

have work, will show

if you have a relationship with a public space anywhere in hell's kitchen, and you think it would be neat to show "chess" there, let me know, ok?



























in the meantime, i'm talking with the real estate people

art crit thing

we've been getting together since last spring i guess, monthly. evening-before-yestereve we saw chris' and rosie's works in progress, mind-opening (looking, talking)

chris =
























rosie =
























all of us:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7059433634

something to show

have been working on this. also sorting through still pictures, want to share.

in tokyo

we arrived in nihonbashi yesterday a little after 4:30. today plan to see the munch exhibit in ueno (think it`s the same one already saw (and loved) in moma x months ago) and, more importantly, hope to swing by julia`s nakaochiai gallery, also ben`s cafe, with brian, yamanote reminiscing.

oh, right, the bizarreness of yesterday, i used to live in nishi-sugamo, just off a street called jizo dori, which is a famous shopping street for the silver-haired set. anyway, the nakasendo went right by my old apartment, where i lived for something like three-and-a-half years. never thought once, out shopping for groceries or whatever, that some of the people walking by were taking a stroll to kyoto.

also had to buy a train ticket at takadanobaba, and remembered that`s where i met mel for the first time, just smiling at each other while buying tickets, saying hi, striking up a conversation, going out all night, getting introduced to brian, so one cup senryu, yamanote, gomi, club ikebukuro, basically my life as it is wouldn`t have happened without brian, but that`s not something that usually occurs to me, just buying that ticket, looking around, really hit home. lots of tokyo memories, even just the subway ride from nihonbashi to takadanobaba on the tozai line, forgot how familiar everything is, i knew the stops coming up, iidabashi, omotesando, oh hey walking by mitsukoshi in nihonbashi, that`s where i used to meet marina for lunch sometimes, back in the day, so it was a trek through the more recent past yesterday, not hiroshige`s so much as my own.

some pics from day one (22nd october 2007, kyoto to kusatsu):






























































































































for mike renouard:















for mike renouard:

a week to tokyo

this time next week, if things go according to plan, which they will, we'll have arrived in nihonbashi.

nice routine, something like this:

oops, matthew is here, dinner time, hey that's part of the routine. dinner usually 6:00-6:30ish (start).

several business hotels coming up, won't be able to post pics but optimistic can blog.

walking

frustrating not being able to upload pictures.

tired, each day long and full (even rest day today) - not only question of internet access, question of erik energy. walking is our primary task.

anyway, will attempt to super-briefly summarize a few experiences, it has already been a meaningful trip, about a quarter of the way in. not sure will blog more without pictures. so frustrating.

ok, leaving, board flight, sleep or try to sleep most of the time. person next to me looks familiar but that would be too much of a coincidence, right? nearing san francisco, for connection to osaka, finally start chatting, where are you headed, why, i say "actually i think i know you, didn`t we meet at a workshop?" and yes, it`s shisano, so we have during the descent to catch up before she heads to nagoya and i board a flight for osaka. feels like syncronicity, the odds are . . . not impossible, obviously, but the chances of being on the same flight, same day, then adjascent seats, i`m still surprised. happy, but surprised.

by the way every night here i`ve had strange dreams. last night there were people in the subway whose heads had been replaced by plants (growing out of their necks, where their heads used to be). they could "see" but not speak, very creepy. part of a government experiment i think.

ok so kyoto, mattew and i get together, we have a sit-down let`s-talk-about-the-art-project meeting at a coffee shop, and come up with a document:

"

METHODOLOGICAL GROUND-RULES:

- evening meeting to discuss prints relating to subsequent day`s trek

- if something is collected, it may not exceed the weight of the current pen nor the size of an A4 (8 1/2" x 11") piece of paper

[coffee stain] <- extraneous coffee (which was awful)

- meetings, as practical, ought to occurr in coffee shops (not hotels)

- trade/barter found objects, and share all photos at the end of each day and/or the end of the journey

- collect travel brochures, etc. for use as background graphics

- will each end up with one collage per walking day

- endeavor to find the literal elements in hiroshige`s prints (e.g., a threesome of women in light travelling garb)

- during evening meeting, choose tasks for following day including following evening

"

looking at this piece of paper now, most of it no longer applies. walking is the thing, and everything else, well, it isn:t quite fair to call it "secondary" - way down there, low low low priority.

jidai matsuri, festival in kyoto, more of a parade, goes backward in time, further and further away from the present, people dressed as historical figures, fitting to see before we started out (one of the main reasons we chose to walk to tokyo from kyoto rather than vice-versa was so we`d be walking forward through time, from the ancient capital to the new capital, the other biggest reasons being that kyoto is at a higher altitude than tokyo so it`s ultimately a down-hill journey, and also greater chance of seeing autumn leaves changing color since we`re heading north should therefore hit them at some point, rather then missing them and chasing them the whole way, or leading them and the leaves are changing behind us - this way, we should see some. already a few, but still just a few.)

then meeting up with john wells, a significant person in my life - friend, guru, collaborator, object of worship, enigma, bringer of friends. anyway he seemed to grasp what we`re doing better then we do, basically an "assault on convenience." not sure if those are his exact words, which i have written down on a scrap of paper somewhere (up in my room, hopefully, standing here at a lobby in the comfort inn opposite gifu station typing this) but that`s how we remember/interperet his message, and it comes up at least once a day.

next morning, on the way to matthew`s hotel i pass men painting the street, which i consider to be a good omen. we ask a taxi driver to drop us off prior to crossing the sanjo bridge so we do it on foot, and begin our journey. lots of hills, narrow roads. all this is days ago, amazing how much longer it feels, we see so much walking, time seems to extend, if that makes any sense.

right, so the art, we changed it after the second or third day, we were too tired to complete our tasks and matthew was frustrated by the travel brochure selection in [wherever day one was]. not much local, everything the same, national tours. as for me, couldn`t imagine bending over to pick up something, or add a single scrap of paper to our loads. in fact, threw out a garbage bag in an attempt to lighten my not-very-heavy pack (but it feels heavy after say mile seven, and then still thirteen miles to go). anyway, the current plan is, we take pictures. especially me. lots and lots of pictures (i`ve started shooting short video clips more, but any still frame can be taken as a pictorial image). we`ve each promised to share all our photos with each other. then, we each make collages, using our images. then, there are some other things i think we want to do, anyway i want to do them, but i'll get to that in a minute. the tasks, i don't know if we're going to keep talking about those, the ones we managed to complete the first couple of days (easy ones like "viewing the moon") i have written down, again, on a scrap of paper upstairs in my room.

in the mornings, though, we do look at hiroshige's prints, over breakfast, before setting out. the prints matching the spots we`re passing that day. and we do refer to them occasionally throughout the day, but my hands are usually busy, camera in one and feeding self snacks with the other. constant clicking, constant chewing.

right, so the next day, more walking, and that`s how it has gone. a lot of walking. the rain made it harder to keep shooting pictures, or write anything down, there were two days of it, but this week should be sunny, according to the weather forecast.

what we have seen, it`s better for me to upload pictures in the future. but we saw a troupe of monkeys crossing a mountain road two days ago.

today, rest day, we went to nagoya, and i was able to introduce shisano to our good friend hitomi. ate hitsu mabushi for the first time. properly.

think better for me to go to sleep rather than blog. not sure if this is coherent, if that matters. mentioned the can`t-share-the-pictures frustration? that`s all i need to share for the rest of the trip, really. incredibly frustrating not being able to share the pictures.

rest day

as the sun was setting, we arrived in gifu, first moment of blue sky after roughly two days of rain. trek has been often small roads, sometimes highways and a couple of trails through fields or woods. we often walk single file so cars can get by, frequently elbow-to-bumper with trucks.

before leaving kyoto we had a stimulating, productive meeting in which we clarified our approach to the art project. we`ll talk about it more today, and i`ll post related thoughts later, internet availability pending of course.

long time no blog

arrived kyoto yesterday. matthew is standing here, tomorrow we set out, first day, excited.
http:www.kisokaido2007.pbwiki.com/dates

have seen orange, blue, green, yellow, and white traffic cones, maybe can`t upload pics until return. also orange-and-black striped, and other colors with white stripes.

weather fantastic. food amazing. shoes comfortable.

hello!

the moon was breathtaking

have fallen out of the habit of carrying my camera with me at all times, just over the past couple weeks. think it started with water fear. yes have special case but bulkier than just-camera-in-pocket, enough so that necessitates carrying backpack. and yes, have been carrying backpack, want to get used to some weight, but think the real reason is to free up my mind a little bit. i think it's to try to imagine ways of sharing the kisokaido experience. we're talking about making collages and taking pictures. is what we're seeing going to be the most important part? are there other ways to convey what we experience, maybe more effective? not sure if anything else would suit us more. in the meantime, equipment gathering (got the rain jacket yesterday) and getting into shape are most pressing, nice to just focus on that, somehow.

so i can't show you the moon.

yesterday was really hot, only did about eight or nine miles. today, though, think was sufficient.

























oh, i can show you this, michael found and gave me some luck.

























and you can believe i appreciate the support. merci.