Urban Scout: Rewilding Cascadia

This week I built an installation for the District of Columbia Arts Center for a show called “The New Future” that included three other artists. I want to thank Kristina Bilonick for designing the concept of the show and bringing me out to D.C. She does awesome stuff. Thanks Kristina!

The installation looked awesome when completed. Two podiums containing some of my primitive tools like my haters pipe, a pine needle basket, my stone knives, etc. We went to the container store and found some clear plastic boxes to set the stuff in, museum style. Than I printed a few series of photos from my blog and framed them, built my tipi using PVC piping, edited together some video shorts for inside the tipi and wrapped the tipi with my radiation tape. I felt a little embarrassed to display a few of the photographs, since I took them for educational purposes, not as artful photographs. It felt a little intimidating to have them up on the wall next to the other artists in the show who had beautifully framed, amazing photos and graphic designs.

Photo montage of the event:

Setting up my Tipi

I can hardly contain myself at the container store!

Talking to people about starting bow-drill fires

The final setup

A tipsy Kristina introduces the artists

Performing my secret cop call

You may have read about the paranoid delusions I have from time to time. Well, this week they came on pretty strong. I tried to figure out where they came from; lack of sleep, jet lag, anxiety, or all of the above? I had nightmares many of the nights and admittedly, had to sleep with the light on one night! A lot of the anxiety came from a mid-week Portland Indymedia controversy…

Before I left Portland, I put up a bunch of posters on Alberta st. for the Derrick Jensen talk I will host on Wednesday December 19th. The next day I noticed someone had taken nearly all the posters down. I thought I would post it on Portland Indymedia to create an awareness that someone had done this. Boy, did that feel like a mistake! Read the discussion on the site for yourself.

Well, thanks to everyone who chimed in and defended me! Expect a more thorough examination blog of that whole thing. I’ve got to get some sleep now. I’ve posted this blog several days later than usual because I have a nasal sickness from the trip. Tomorrow morning I go under the knife for my cancer, than host the Derrick Jensen Q and A in the evening… It never stops.