|
Bright Lines and Dark Hallows; |
||
| An Introduction: In the late fall of 2006 I was feeling down. I had just come off a long, hot summer filled with excitement, and interest, but also confusion, which left me with more questions than answers. The weather got colder and rainier in Portland as winter got closer to being a reality. The Brooklyn Yards – staying true to its early origins – with no insulation to speak of, and hardly any light either, was feeling grim. Within the internal gloom of this scenario I was given the opportunity to take on a project through the kind invitation of Stephanie Snyder at the Reed College Cooley Gallery. I was not certain what exactly I might like to do in response to this invitation. Colin Beattie and I, over beers at Terry’s Tavern, while attending our weekly Revolutionary Book Club meeting, hatched two plans that could be implemented. The inaugural plan was to take over Ross Island in some fashion, and “do something” with it. Ross Island is now nearly abandoned, and has experienced many years of brutal use by the Ross Island Sand and Gravel Company. The island is located in the middle of the Willamette River, just south of Downtown Portland, Oregon. If you have any sort of arm, standing on the banks of the river you can throw a rock from the riverside to the island rather easily. The second idea was to buy a small craft, and travel down the Pacific coast, from Anacortes, Washington, through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, down the Washington, and Oregon Coasts; stopping along the way to tell tales of our sea travel, have bands play for us upon our arrival at different ports, and drink beer in an attempt to steady our sea-legs. Another briefly considered idea was to use the funds to fly our friend McCloud Zicmuse back from France, where he had been living for the last seven months after being kidnapped by Gypsies. These ideas did not go over well with Stephanie. Though, to her credit, she did momentarily consider them. I am glad that she felt them unfit for the job at hand. They were born out of depression and a need to escape, drown myself in the depths. They were not the right medicine for a cure. With this in mind I went back to the drawing board and considered Red76’s most recent project, Revolutionary Spirit; a means to create forums, through a variety of means – such as meals, walks, exhibitions, “illegal” radio programming, and publications – to discuss how we as American’s encounter notions of Revolution with our everyday existence. I had been thinking a lot about place within this time period. How we can be defined, even controlled, by our surroundings. And how sometimes we are able to ride the spectral energy of our surroundings towards a better moment. Sometimes this harnessing of energy involves more than one person. Sometimes in involves dozen, hundreds, thousands. Having recently looked into a few dozen revolutionary localities involving the likes of Ed Sanders, the Civil War Draft Riots, Malcolm X, and the Yippies, among other histories, while doing a project in New York City, I was inspired to continue these investigations, though this time on the road around the country; visiting histories little known, sadly forgotten, or just beginning to come to light. Late one night, at a party at our friend Matthew’s house I asked Stephanie if I could tell her about the project that I was interested in taking on. She said no, unless I could tell her telekinetically. I held my palm out, and rested it gently on her forehead. She began to tell me what my project might entail. Spectral energy transferred through my hand, through her skull, and into her brain, and then it was set. In a few weeks I would hit the road. As much of the trip that I was able to convey is within these pages. The journey took close to one month, and 7,500 miles were logged.Leaving on December 6th from Portland I traveled down the West Coast, through Oregon, and California, and over to Las Vegas, Nevada. From there it was through the desert in Arizona, to New Mexico, through a small portion of Texas, then Oklahoma, and Kansas, a smidgen of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi,then Alabama. From there it was back to Tennessee, up through Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan (a brief stop in Canada), onto Chicago, Illinois, resting in the Twin Cities for Christmas. From Minnesota it was on through North Dakota, Montana, the panhandle of Idaho, then Washington, and back home to Oregon. |
||