Things I've been looking at.

  Ulrika Kestere via ulicam

 Danna Ray

 Lily Stockman

 Via a now-defunct tumblr

 Zoe Poster via designsponge

 Andy Goldsworthy via All the Mountains

 Both Curiot via Fecal Face

 Mari Andrews

 Nose Go via Fecal Face

 Ian Hughes via Fecal Face

Just, you know... letting things marinate. Trying to calm down, get inspired, and then who knows what could happen.

Reasons why.

Although generally they are very supportive, one of my good friends was incredulous when she heard that I had decided to hike the PCT. "Why?" She asked. "You were miserable on the last hike. You hated it!" This was a logical conclusion for her to make since I tended to make phone calls to her when I was extraordinarily bored and/or miserable. There was a monumental struggle with ennui on the Appalachian Trail and I'm curious to see how I cope with it on my second attempt at a long distance hike.

I should call friends and family more often when the amazing aspects of hiking occur so that I can convey the reasons why I feel this love and longing towards hiking... but when you're in the woods you don't usually want to whip out your phone at these moments.

So for those of you to whom I perpetually complained about boredom and filth here is an apology and just a few of many moments that I should really should have shared, instead of complaining for the umpteenth time that I smelled bad. I can't wait to discover the many reasons why the Pacific Crest Trail will be far more wonderful than it is terrible. These pictures only convey the smallest fraction of the joy and freedom you get to experience while living life on a long distance trail.

YES.

For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly. 

don Juan

Art by Cath McMurray

Becca Stadtlander

I know, I know. My inconsistency in posting has been off the charts lately. (Well, it hasn't been that bad but for those of you used to a post per day I apologize!) My mind has been spinning in futile circles lately; yesterday I tried to take a ten minute shower and ended up staring blankly at the walls for over forty minutes while I reiterated itineraries and mail drops and unfinished tasks in my head. It was completely and utterly useless. The Pacific Crest Trail has taken over my life, and I'm not even hiking yet.

Moving on to brighter things: Becca Stadtlander creates the most lovely illustrations and is yet another artist I kind of want to be.You can tell that nature makes her happy, and that makes me happy!

See you tomorrow. I promise.

Asahel Curtis

Today I was researching* Edward Curtis (a photographer who documented Native Americans at the beginning of the 20th century) when I stumbled across his lesser-known brother via NPR. Asahel was also a photographer and what caught my eye were these colorized lantern slides of Washington that were commissioned by the Washington state Department of Conservation and Development of the time.

NPR's article at one point says "...just as often the images are beautiful because they create a world with its own integrity, either by their awkwardness or because the color they offer is better than what we experience in the real world."

 Well, I beg to differ, NPR!

 I think that the color that I'll be experiencing in the beautiful state of Washington while on the Pacific Crest Trail will suit me just fine thankyouverymuch!**



*And by researching, I mean procrastinating of course.
** I drank too much coffee before writing this. Clearly.

Andrew Wyeth

The color palette of Andrew Wyeth's work is subdued, as is his imagery... and his work has been dismissed by critics as sentimental, provincial and illustrative.

But what I see is a man whose translation of the everyday imbues a sort of magic realism to the ordinary. “By means of art we are sometimes sent dimly, briefly, revelations unattainable by reason, like that little mirror in fairy tales. Look into it and you will see not yourself but for a moment, that which passes understanding, a realm to which no man can ride or fly and for which the soul begins to ache.” 

Occasionally I feel a slight tug deep inside of me, as if my heart is being squeezed, and there's a flash of gratitude and love for something so much bigger than me. It can be triggered by almost anything outside: a puddle, mountains, clouds, a raven hanging above me on a summit, a circle of lichen on a tree, the scent of sun-warmed dirt and pine needles, a silhouette of weeds; I don't even need to be hiking for this to happen, sometimes it's just while driving and catching a brief glimpse of the surrounding environment as it flashes past. It's something profoundly simple, beautiful and evocative. Something that makes my soul ache.

In other words, what I am trying to tell you is that while by society's standards I may be hopelessly single... I realized recently that I am in the best goddamn relationship of my life and it's with dirt and rocks and trees and sky. Thank you Andrew Wyeth, for your visual reminder of the visceral reaction that even ordinary surroundings can evoke... if you love them enough.

  
Trodden Weed, The Carry and Ice Pool by Andrew Wyeth. Images sourced here and here. Solzhenitsyn quote sourced from an excellent blog post about Wyeth found here.

Finding a different time.

It's a beautiful day, and I'm sitting here (ok, by sitting I really mean slumping) on a couch in a cozy home in a tiny town in Vermont nursing a slight hangover and posting belatedly.  The coffee seems to be curing the hangover, thankfully. What has not been cured, however, is the fact that I'm thinking the same revolving thoughts that have been swirling through my head for weeks now.

Thoughts like: why is it so hard to have a wonderful adventure like this in our day and age? When I say I want to hitch-hike across the country generally the response I get is "Oh, that sounds really dangerous." Which frankly, isn't enough to deter me... but my present financial situation is pretty bleak and I do want to be able to afford taking 5 months off from my life to walk from Mexico to Canada. So perhaps frittering away my money at rest stops should not be on my agenda. I'm on the fence. I know it can be a cheap way to travel... but there's always a fear that unanticipated expenses will arise. If you have grand stories about hitching, please share them! (One of the guests at the lodge this winter met his wife hitching across Alaska. Of course, like most of the lovely stories I have heard about hitch-hiking, this happened several decades ago... during what everyone is fond of referring to as a different time.)

Speaking of: if you're like me and you secretly long to live in that mysterious state of existence known as a different time watch this trailer. These people are doing just that.

Encountering Space: The Fire Lookouts of Montana from Tom Persinger on Vimeo.

ps: It's time to get off the couch and I think I'm going to take a day off from blogging tomorrow... but I promise I'll be back on Thursday! See you then. Bring your favorite hitch-hiking tale!

Shiny happy people.

These are wonderful. Artist Amy Friend alters old photographs with subtle pinpricks of light.

(Via The Jealous Curator.)

Today I smiled so much that the muscles in my cheeks actually hurt. The damp & foggy gloom of melting snow has been replaced with an almost surreal amount of heat and sunlight. After a winter existence spent trapped under hats and alternately shivering or stifled by artificial heat it felt wildly exciting to spend two hours in the car with the windows down and my hair tossed about by the wind.

I'm enjoying my days off, to say the least.

Sandy Litchfield

Topographies that seem based off of memory and tactile experience, landscapes that fluidly merge and shift, and even portraits of people cobbled from the stuff that makes up the earth... what's not to like? See more work here: Sandy Litchfield.

Illustrative envy.

I love Dadu Shin's illustrations. Whimsy, awesomeness, and a unique style that I wish I could steal for my own.

Enigmatic & atmospheric.

I'm currently stuck in that strange no-man's land that accompanies ditching a job and planning something big. It's happening soon, but not soon enough. Rather than bore you with my encroaching anxiety let's distract ourselves with some artwork, shall we? This work is a bit different than my normal preferences (I'm a big fan of color) but something about them struck me. Ok, fine. I'll admit it. The  shapes and facets and sheer faces and stark tones reminded me of mountains. Go figure.

Happy Friday! See you Monday.

Via The Jealous Curator, I'm Revolting and Arthound. Artists from top to bottom are Josue Rauscher, Leslie Shows, Evonne Bellefleur (twice) and Axel Brechensbauer.

Kelsey Brooks

I'm pretty partial to Kelsey Brooks work that he calls meditation circles.

Shaker spirit/gift drawing.

"In 1853 visiting spirits dancing in twisting circles were seen and recorded (by Timothy Randlett) at Enfield, New Hampshire..."

"To be sure, the term drawing is a misnomer, because the Shakers did not use it themselves when they were referring to these works. In the few Shaker documents in which the gift drawings are mentioned, they are typically referred to as sheets, rolls, signs, notices, tokens of love, presents, rewards, hearts — sometimes prefaced by the adjective sacred. This definition focuses on the function of the works as gifts from heavenly spirits, rather than on the form in which the gifts were materialized. In fact, the gift drawings often include titles, captions, inscriptions, and extended texts, in English as well as in scripts written in indecipherable tongues, that place them on an uninterrupted continuum with other manifestations of belief, such as inspired writing, ecstatic movement, and spontaneous speech, especially in the form of song."

France Morin, in Shaker Gift Drawings and Gift Songs, The Drawing Center, New York, and UCLA Hammer Museum, 2001 (above image sourced from this publication via the internet)

This is cool/strange on so many levels. More information here.