DAY 271
12.21.07
TREE 198
New Year’s Eve. And end to an amazing and crazy year of changes and accomplishments. I’ve spent 3/4’s of this year climbing a tree over day. I had my first real show in downtown Louisville, I made new friends, and I felt like an adult for the first time. I sold a piece of art to a person I didn’t know, I lived off $120 a month and have never been happier. I told the only person I have ever loved, my fiance, that our relationship was over. I chose to concentrate on my life and my goals. In so doing I got some stuff and sold even more in moving back to Kentucky. I live with my parents again and I thought of a job, called, interviewed, and got it. Then I realized it wasn’t right for me. It has been a pivotal year for me. But it wasn’t complete until I climbed my last tree of 2007.
I went with Will to Natalie’s house for a party. I chose to wait to climb because I knew we’d be going to parts of Louisville I rarely see. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to find lots of new trees. When we arrived shortly after 7pm I got right to it. I went out the back door of Natalie’s house and surveyed her trees. Not so good within her fence but just behind I saw an option. I hopped the short chain link fence and went to the trunk of the tree. I was wrong, it was an awful option. So I looked back to a line of trees and shrubs. I looked up against the dark sky and looked for he tallest tree. It was straight back, not thirty feet away. As I approached the path in the tree became clearer. I hopped another fence and got right to climbing. Getting in was easy since the trunk split low. I had plenty of limbs but notso many that I was crowded. I moved upward with relative ease just pausing shortly at times to plan my holds. At one juncture I cleaned off a climb of dead leaves and twigs that had collected in a crotch of three limbs. Some debris got all over me but I needed to know if underneath all that stuff was a secure foothold. It was. From that point I made it up almost to the top.
Not much of a view in this neighborhood,
but I tied my ribbon and took what pictures I could.
Natalie and Will watched me. First from the screened porch then they came out to the yard for a better look. Some comments were made. Later in the party Natalie would tell every new guest what I had done. Wanting to get to partying, I quickly climbed down and got ready to "get down."
Two additional parties later, I brought in the new year with old high school people. Strange but an okay night. It rained heavy shortly after I climbed so I was lucky I climbed when I did. A good omen for 2008.
1-7-09: 2007 was a big year of change for me, as I listed above. But 2008 was also quite eventful. I applied to be an apprentice member at the co-op gallery Zephyr in downtown Louisville. I interviewed and was voted in. I started my scheduled shifts in March and signed up to have my show for October 2009. This was a huge goal of mine accomplished.
Though I realized the tree service job was not for me at the end of 2007, I did not quit till the end of February of 2008. I waited till they taught me the basics of climbing with a rope and harness. They also told me I was a slow learner and wanted to cut my pay by a dollar an hour. (Don’t worry, you’ll get the whole story in an upcoming entry.) Being free of commitment and increasingly interested in Barack Obama’s campaign, I went to Cincinnati to canvass door to door for him for the March 4th primary. One week, in the snow, staying with my godfather, it was a great experience. I am often shy with new people and it forced me to interact with many people everyday, start conversations, etc. It was a great experience. Then Hillary won the primary. (Slightly disappointed but totally vindicated months later.)
Once back home I set my sights to moving out on my own and working on my art. By June I had a show in the works in Dublin, Ohio and needed to make four human cicada shell bodies and figure out a way to make them permanent. I also sublet an apartment right across the hall from Will. It was a sweet place with a covered deck in the back. I loved those two months. Unfortunately Will and I have gone our separate ways, but as I type up these old entries and reread about our adventures together I think of him often.
I also started the first Louisville Parkour group this last summer. Starting little and unstructured with just close friends, it has expanded to over 50 members registered on our LouisvilleParkour.com website. We have regular meet-ups at U of L, the Waterfront, and Flip City Gymnastics each week. It has been amazing to meet such great people, teach what I can, see improvement, and learn a lot myself. I can’t wait to see where this thing goes in 2009.
After my subletting experience I moved in with Drew in Germantown and slept on his floor refusing to return to my parents’ out in Buckner. I had taken my brother’s old ten speed and had it rebuilt into a fixed gear and fell in love with it. I have been biking every where since, rain or shine, and feel stronger, healthier and much more green filling up my truck’s tank only once a month.
I completed my four bodies for the Dublin, Ohio sculpture park show in September and installed them while three local television stations filmed below. I was in the Columbus Dispatch paper twice and had the opening in late October. And just weeks ago I was called and told that the Members of the Dublin community voted on the sculptures, informing Dublin Arts Council’s decision to purchase my work as a gift for the City of Dublin’s permanent collection. Another amazing goal checked off my list.
During the same time Drew and I moved into a house in Butchertown. The stink from the Swift plant can be bad, and the utilities expensive in the cold months, but the location is perfect, and the house is nice.
This is all I can think of right now, but 2008 was a great year filled from January 1st to December 31st with a tree climb everyday. I feel so grateful to have such great family and friends and the ability to do what I love and live off it. I hope all your 2009’s are better than last years.
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Back to the grind… and I am now on Tuesday, December 30th 2008. The day was sunny and still unseasonable warm. I drove over to George Rogers Clark Park off Poplar Level Road. I walked from the parking lot over by a tree I had climbed before and am planning on using for a future photography project. I wanted to make sure the weather hadn’t claimedany of its branches I planned to use for the project. Then I walked over to the corner of the park by the entrance of the park where I massive beech tree pulled me in.
I found a small but strong branch to pull down and crawl up to reach the trunk.
I hooked my legs over a nearby limb and pulled my upper body up to a seated position then got to my feet and began to climb up. As often happens in large beech trees like this, I spiraled around the trunk till I had to choose my leader branch to follow up.
I couldn’t get to the very end of the branch
but I got up high in the tree and took pictures of the park,
a nearby house,
some tennis courts,
the street,
*Hey everybody!*
but mostly of the tree and it’s intricate limb structure.
I started to climb back down trying to pick a different path than I came up to make it interesting. I reached the bottom and decided I wasn’t ready to climb all the way down.
I rotated around the entire tree again, took some more pictures of some interesting limbs,
then decided I would make a video of the entry. Unfortunately, the branch bends so much I stay most on the edge or just off the edge of the frame.
While fidgeting with my camera I got a call from Cassandra. She was in a park near her home in Ohio that she recently discovered and saw all the trees and thought of me. She told me I needed to come visit again just so we could go to this park. I told her I was planning to be at my Grandma’s in Ohio for New Years and I’d try to make it over. Then I finished my fidgeting, climbed down and walked back to my truck with an overwhelming feeling of contentment and warmth.