NOTES ON READINGS

Notes from readings, ideas that resonate…
(Updated as I read)

 

Walking and Mapping, Artists as Cartographers, Karen O’Rourke

 

 

p.5 “Before going our separate ways, we discussed how difficult it had been to find names. Although naming something can make us more acutely aware of the particular qualities of that thing, our relationship with an environment is built over time. The visitors among us could not easily put a name on things we perceived confusedly. “on the tips of out tongues,” the names slid off, and instead came paraphrases, descriptions, and approximations. However imprecise they may be as labels; these remarks give us a sense of place”.

 

 

p. 5. “The stumbling block for people who are familiar with an area is a selective gaze that ignores everything but what is necessary for the task at hand. We see only what we expect to see. It takes a certain detachment to be able to look for a thing and find another fortuitously.”

 

Me: The creative exercises for the first walk really brought this notion to my attention. The formula that made me stop and look when I otherwise wouldn’t, forced me to see things I might have walked right by.

 

p.6 “He maintains that when we stop using a name, the place itself vanishes.”

 

p.6 “…geonomics, a theory that people own only what they create and therefore land and other natural resources belong to the community; geodynamics, ““the study of the activity and forces inside the earth””; onomatics the study of the origin, form, meaning and use of names, especially proper names; and nomic, a game in which players propose ““changes in the rules, debate the wisdom of changing them in that way, vote on the changes.”” With our feet, we are continually writing the city but can we read it.”

 

P7 Debord: “psycho-geography should examine the “specific effects of the geographical environment …on the emotions and behaviors of individuals”. To accomplish ambitious investigation, he recommended drifting

 

 

 

 

Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit (Chapter 1)

 

“The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through the landscape echoes or simulates the passage through a series of thoughts. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and walking is one way to traverse it.

 

Me: The experience of walking supports this thinking for me.  It may take 20-30 minutes before the state of mind sets in but I find a different part of my brain is at work. A part of the brain that is good at problem solving and creative thinking.  I can compose pieces of writing, envision solutions to visual challenges and solve arguments. The trick is remembering what I have come up with when I reenter the world.

 

“Too, the rhetoric of efficiency around these technologies suggest that what cannot be quantified cannot be valued – that that vast array of pleasures which fall into the category of doing nothing in particular, of wool gathering, cloud gazing, wandering, window shopping, are nothing but voids to be filled by something more definite, more productive and faster paced.”

 

Me: Oh man, do I suffer from this way of thinking.  Even dawdling in the woods rather than walking quickly to get my heart rate up seems like a decadent activity. Heaven forbid I stop and stare at the clouds or a bug. But when I do, there is great reward. With it comes the humbling realization that I/we are such a small piece of an unfathomably large system and to think we can control it is pure arrogance. With that comes some peace for me. I will continue to do what I can to support that system at the micro scale that I come in contact with it, not because my actions have that much impact but because it feels right and respectful and honors the joy that my little piece of the universe gives me.

 

“I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, work at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought, or thoughtfulness.”

 

“When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for you when you come back, while new places offer up new possibilities.”

 

Me: Re discovering the trails across the street confirms Solnit’s comment here. While it took a little while to adjust to the changes in the landscape that occurred in my absence, I quickly came to feel like I was visiting with an old friend, the kind you can just pick up where you left off even if it was years ago that you last spoke.

 

 

Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit – Chapter 4

 

p.3       “…makes it clear that a pilgrimage is work, or rather labor in a spiritual economy in which effort and privation are rewarded. Nobody has ever quite articulated whether this economy is one which benefits are incurred for labor expended or the self is refined into something more worthy of such benefit – and nobody needs to…”

 

p. 4 “I kept having to remind myself it wasn’t a hike and get over my desire to move at my own speed and make good time. As it turned out, it was slowness that would make this hard work.”

 

p. 6 “Or perhaps it reconciles the spiritual and the material, for to go on pilgrimage is to make the body and its actions express the desires and beliefs of the soul. Pilgrimage unites beliefs with actions, thinking with doing, and it makes sense that this harmony is achieved when the sacred has material presence and location.”

 

p.7 “Too, we tend to imagine life as a journey, and going on an actual expedition takes hold of that image and makes it concrete, acts it out with the body and the imagination in a world whose geography has become spiritualized.

 

“In pilgrimage, the journey is radiant with hope that arrival at the tangible destination will bring spiritual benefits with it.”

 

Here’s my atheistic take on the pilgrimage and the labor/commitment involved. It’s all about endorphins. The dedication to the task and the focus that comes with that, along with the actual labor involved in the walking all produce high levels of endorphins which could be construed as spiritual or God sent. That said, it does not diminish the joy in the accomplishment and the experiences along the way.

 

 

 

Katie Holland Lewis - katiehollandlewis.com

 

·      2067 II SE – 2167 II NE #2. paper; 60″ x 120″, paper with torn edges and thousands of small needles hole punches. Making it look almost like bark but stark white. Very fragile, held together/stabilized by un-punctured border. Tears and holes create shadows against the wall behind giving dark contrast to the white of the paper.

 

 

·      201/1206 Days. pins, thread and graphite; 75″ x 30″ x 2″. Like the previous piece, part of the awe comes from the realization of the work involved, the incredible repetition of motion, the amount of patience and dexterity needed to work with such fine materials. The final work has a ghost like feeling, of not quite being solid but almost.

 

 

 

 

·      Intermittent Transmissions. thread; 58″ x 108″ x 2″.  Again, awe coming from the patience and precision necessary for this piece. It is reminiscent of black birds gathering in the utility wires. The shadows add   to the energy and complexity of the work. I wonder what the shadows would be like if that was all you could see of the piece. When you see the whole piece straight on, the suggestion of text and paragraph comes through solidly but you lose the energy of the piece that you get when close up.