Sunday, October 7, 2018
Calm, 26ºF
7:30am Another beautiful, stunning morning of dark sky and water, with bright white mountains. We get to go on a long hike today, and the ship will pick us up on the other side of the valley.
Slept well last night even after resting/napping most of yesterday. To bed around 11:00pm after a night of presentations by other artists on the trip. I am so impressed by everyone’s work here. Dinner was a broccoli soup with steamed veg, fried potatoes, and baked fish. (For me, there was a veggie patty - thanks, Piet!)
I’m very excited to get out for a 9am hike today. Sarah stressed that what we’ve done so far have been leisurely walks, and this will be much more strenuous. I’m looking forward to moving - this is what I’ve been training for. Hopefully my training will have been good enough - probably not, but I’m much better off than I was at the beginning of the summer. Even so, I can tell that I’ve already lost muscle in the rest of my body since being on the ship. When I go home, I look forward to exercising regularly again. Even though we’ve been eating so much, I think I’ve lost weight. I’m constantly in the smaller belt notch. It makes sense- we walk all day and spend hours in the cold. Metabolism must be sped up to Arctic levels of efficiency. It’s time to get ready to get out there!
Guide Kristin, keeping watch for polar bears behind Lloyd Hotel.
3:45pm Exhilarating hike today— Some of us opted to go on the hike, and some stayed aboard the ship for a different perspective. Before we headed out on our two separate experiences, the group of all of us spent some time exploring the shore and the small shack of Lloyd Hotel. There were polar bear tracks all around, so the guides kept especially careful watch. Shortly after, we headed out…. into the open Arctic.
Polar bear tracks.
We hiked about 6 miles probably. The terrain was super rough, so I could be over-estimating it. Ping-pong to baseball-sized rocks under snow is hard to navigate gracefully, but my combination of Mukluks and Neos kept my feet warm and my ankles from turning. The walk was exceptional, and it was welcome to get out of the ship for a little while.
On the hike, we saw lots of polar bear tracks zig-zagging the valley. I was pretty worried that we would see one, but we didn’t. There were tracks to where a bear had laid down and gotten back up again. Lots of arctic fox tracks, too, some birds. We walked for probably 2 hours or so, then rested by a frozen lake to have a snack. All of us were surprised to hear that we’d already gone 2/3rds of the way to the bay where we’d be picked up by Antigua. I could’ve been really happy with an additional hour, but I think we actually ended up hiking for about 3.5 hours or so.
Usually I prefer hiking alone, but I was really happy to be hiking with our group. I spent some time chatting and/or walking near Kim, John, Theresa, Bonnie, Tamara, and Kristin - seems like two weeks is not nearly enough time to spend with these people. I’m really going to have a hard time leaving, I know that already. This is most certainly one of the most incredible experiences of my life. After gatherings like this, or after other residencies, I always intend to keep in contact with other people. But I never seem to be able to do so. This time I really hope I can manage to do that.
Hiking along a frozen lake between Lloyd Hotel and Lilliehöökbreen.
Guide Sarah and Nemo overlooking Lilliehöökbreen near the end of the hike.
The rest of the group is going on zodiac tours right now, but I’m skipping. Drinking a beer, resting, reflecting, and writing sounds better to me right now. I’m a little tired from the walk, and my brain feels saturated from the sights of today. It’s nice to get a few minutes by myself.
On the other hand, I should try to get back outside. I have the rest of my life to be inside writing… but I’m feeling really tired. Sometimes here I notice an intense conflict between allowing myself to rest and reflect on what I’ve just seen - and the need to get outside and absorb even more of this land.
(A little while later… ) So, I went outside for a while and I am super happy that I did. Experience won out over rest. Antigua, barely moving, captured the perfect panorama of the exquisite adjacent glacier - blue, teal, white. Silent. Monolithic.
I want to project on opposite walls the video of passing the glacier. How does all of this fit with what I’m doing with my art? Does it matter if it fits or not?
Looking towards the glacier at Lilliehöökbreen aboard the Antigua.
From my second journal devoted to thoughts about art:
I took 3-minute videos off the side of the ship. I’d like to project these on opposite sides of a gallery. With what? Alone? Do they need anything with them? What’s it all about? If I’m only thinking about atmosphere, it might not fit. Maybe I can’t shoe-horn this into the AoV project, but it fits with me and my work.
I think I might be about quiet, about the natural world, and about feeling a part of it. Realizing our interconnection - the atmosphere - is a vital part of this interconnection. That’s important, yet abstract and easy overlooked. But, there are also waves - air and water… land and weather… other elements that hold my attention as well.
The connection with water is an important one to me. I don’t want to talk about that in the same way that other artists do, but it is certainly another through-link and a point of interconnection. A concern for climate and what we’re doing to the planet…
What are we ‘doing’ to the planet? We are a part of nature. Humans are nature. I know this. But, we are also altering the chemistry and atmosphere for the rest of the inhabitants. We are making it more difficult for our selves to maintain our own lives as well. But is this what my art is about? Maybe not.
I think, actually, that I want to draw attention to love for the planet, for our natural world. And, this love is shared between us. Maybe not in the same ways between all cultures, but perhaps it is a communal admiration, a universal respect.
Does it need to be? Can it be only about me? I don’t think it is, though. There is some kind of commonality to be shared, some through-line of connection, some shared experience to point to.
So, bringing this back to perception. What will people do when I project glaciers on either side of the gallery? How long will they sit? What will they say about it? Will people who haven’t traveled to cold places be able to connect with it? How would their gallery experience differ from my own out here?
But, is there also an aspect of Extreme in there? Extreme travel, extreme locations, extreme exertion? Or is it just that I’ll go wherever I need to in order to get what I’m looking for? So, is it about perception? Or, finding a different vantage point to perceive the same planet?
Some of us can perceive the effects we have on the world around us. For example, being up here for just a few weeks, we are extremely careful not to leave any trash - especially plastic. Careful to use only organic products that may end up back in the water. We gather garbage whenever we find it. In certain ways, it feels pristine here — fewer humans, for sure. But it’s an illusion, too. Because we are all in this closed system of this one planet, and we know that the Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. However, we are here in a year when winter came several weeks earlier than normal. (Thus, most places we visit are covered with snow and ice already, hiding the evidence of garbage and consumption that even reaches these ultimately remote locations.)
What do we know versus what can we perceive in terms of time. I guess we rely on science and data about our planet in order to create these stories of how our world is changing. But, can I make work that is environmental - yet - only sharing the positive stories; sharing only the love of place and surrounding without the story of negativity, fear, guilt, and shame? What is the use of these emotions if they don’t help us create change? Do they help us have conversations in any way? Do they allow us to fully appreciate a place despite the damage we know that our western existence causes? If we talk about it, is that a step towards change?
But what does change even mean? Does it mean that we admit that we’ve been wrong? That’s maybe a scarier thing than anything to realize. That we’ve been wrong. And we continue to recreate the same mistakes. But, then again, I don’t want to go to that negative place. I would rather talk about the wonders and the beauty we experience anywhere between our backyards and neighborhoods all the way out to to the north and south poles.
This activity is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (MRAC) through a grant from The McKnight Foundation.