Yesterday it was threatening to rain and later poured.
I went for a walk in the morning and returned a way I hadn’t before, over the railroad bridge and down a small gravel path through the park. Because of the rain, the path had developed creases and ridges where the water flowed more easily.
I tiptoed on the ridge, trying not to slip. On either side, ferns and trees sucked in the moisture and exhaled the sweet mustiness of damp ferns, cuddled moss, and slick bark.
Tentative, unsteady steps down a steep, grooved path. A memory punctures.
It’s a bright dry sunny day in December 2017 at Sea Ranch in California, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. The path is dry as only California can be. Long-forgotten rains have left harsh cracks in this narrow, packed-earth path. Here I tiptoe too.
Brief background:
My dear friend Adam Marks, whom I have written about several times in these pages, and his dearest friend and performance partner Jennifer Beattie had developed an extraordinary residency program called Artists at Albatross Reach, or, as they loved to growl: AAAR, at Sea Ranch.
The residency’s mission was to partner one artist (visual or otherwise) with a composer or performer of contemporary classical music and to bring them together for two weeks to experiment. Several months later, the artists would come back to Sea Ranch for an intensive week to consolidate work and present a public performance.
After considering me for some time and who I might be paired with, Adam and Jen settled on the composer, performer, and sound artist Jason Charney. Ryan McMasters and Diana Wade were the other two (amazing) invited artists.
I remember Adam calling me several months before the residency and saying, “I think we’re going to pair you with Jason. He’s really young, but I think you two will get along great.” And, of course, Adam was right. Jason’s a genius, basically half my age, and can do anything. I will not elaborate, rather, you can discover more about him here.
***
I collected some rocks. I made some drawings of the rocks.
We went for walks and looked for more rocks and gazed at sea lions and spouting whales. We got high. I went into a frenzy over the infinitude of stars. We wandered among the redwoods. We did deep listening.
I had no idea what to do with composers and was reluctant to experiment with instruments. But I took photos of the drawings of the rocks.
At the end of the two weeks we had a house concert and showed the film with musical improvisation. Here’s the film of the rocks, but without the music.
While the sunset dipped into the sea, Adam and I also performed part of our collaboration “The Blooming Colors.” We’d made that piece together for two public performances during the Dreamlands exhibition at the Whitney. (Thank you Megan Heuer!)
It was also during the Sea Ranch residency when I set upon the project that would occupy the next three years of my life, the documentary film, Bunker. From California I continued my long and winding phone conversations with Ed Peden and made plans to film at Subterra Castle, and I spent hours on the phone trying to get permission to film at VivosX.
In those calls I spoke with VivosX’s Barbi Grossman, who frequently mentioned that she had a degree in psychology. And she certainly had a talent for getting me to talk about what my deepest motivations were for filming at their field of nearly 600 mostly-empty munitions bunkers in rural South Dakota.
But my Midwestern upbringing had trained me well to deflect such mind-control. I delighted in playing the innocent fool appearing to allow Barbi’s deft sales pitch to influence me. My promise to consider the purchase of a bunker sealed the deal and I was granted permission to film at VivosX in June 2018.
Needless to say, I did have more than one moment when I arrived at Vivos when I very well might have gone for leasing a concrete half-dome hundreds of miles from anything. But only as a studio, or maybe to develop some sort of artist residency program. I didn’t have the money anyway.
At Sea Ranch, under the stars, I asked my friends’ permission for things they knew I wanted to do and would be able to do just fine. They reassured me. Their excitement was infectious. That is where I learned how to share the germ of new ideas. Where I found acceptance and the confidence to take on new adventures.
The experiment that is this weekly writing began to trickle its way down and etch new paths through the hard dry ground I’d packed so tight over the years.
Stone, gravel, and earth. A passing cloudburst.
Rivulets and streams coursing through stone, gravel, and packed earth.
Thanks for reading.
P.S. Endless gratitude to Jennifer Beattie, the Beattie family, Jason Charney, Diana Wade, Ryan McMasters, Artists at Albatross Reach, Gualala Arts, Gabe Pitta, and the Marks family.
http://gualalaarts.org/2018/05/artists-at-albatross-reach-with-jennifer-beattie-and-adam-marks/
always a pleasure to read you, Jenny, I should do it more frequently