DAY 77

DAY 77
06.20.07
TREE 86

Today was a crazy day. I woke up feeling like I had tons to do and I checked my email and found out I had more to do. My submission for the DIG! Gallery show was accepted and on top of the Actors Theatre show I have lots of bodies to make. So I have been running around casting and buying supplies. After stopping by Michelle’s to drop off her sewing machine and have some dinner I stopped at the U of L campus to get my climb in. I chose a tree very near where I parked on 3rd Street. The branches were low and close at the beginning but as I went higher more and more were dead. But there were enough knots and decent holds to get me up high. And at one point I traveled around in a semi-circle to get to another branch where I could go higher. In a comfortable stance I tied my ribbon and took a picture of my truck. Then feeling like I have lots to do I climbed down the same way I went up. A nice short pause in the middle of a hectic day. I really value this project.

6-24-08:  Man!  I got backed up.  I went to Palo Alto, CA to visit my friend Ben and was able to post the first day.  But then subsequent days I had trouble loading videos, he didn’t have a program to adjust my photos… etc….  So now I am back in Louisville and in my new apartment but my laptop isn’t connecting.  The long and short of it: I am y have trouble being consistent on my daily postings.  It doesn’t mean I have fallen out of a tree and am hurt or worse, so no need to worry.  It also doesn’t mean that I have stop climbing a tree everyday.  I have and I will continue to do so for the future, indefinitely, with no plan to stop.  That being said, let me move on to the commentary and discussion of my climb from 6-19-08.

In response to the journal entry above, I remember that time being incredibly hectic.  I was stressed but it was one of those good stresses.  I was always busy making art, getting materials, and doing my resident coordinator duties.  My life was all about art, which was a first for me and it felt great.  Pretty soon, my life may be similar.  I have a lot of bodies to get made with the added step of covering them in fiberglass.  Wish me luck.

As for the climb from last Thursday, Ben had to go somewhere for a while so I went and climbed a tree.  I walked around his block and found a little area of trees by a creek.  The trees out in Cali are mostly small except for really huge evergreens and palm trees.  (I find out later there are more, like some really cool eucalyptus trees.)  So I chose a small one next to the street.  It would have been a quick climb had the underside of the limbs not been covered in these weird, fuzzy pods whose contents are unknown.  They are either some crawly thing turning into a flying thing, larvi waiting to hatch, or dead bugs trapped and wrapped by some other creepy crawly thing.  These thoughts of awfulness were running through my head as I climb and did my best to avoid any contact with them.  I got up pretty high but those nasty things along with some fungus really was taking its toll on this tree.  Many of the limbs in this tree are dead or dying.  Some pictures and a video to help explain my experience.