week six: taste

 

week five: scent, (plus a few detours)

please click on thumbnails to see higher resolution photos. 

July 24, 2020

Seeking language to describe the smells of a walk along Hodgeman’s beach and through the forest in the north woods of Maine.  Capturing these in bottles gathered from a hidden trash heap behind Burnt Cabin beach.  

fragrant stewing tea of pollen dusted, too-warm lake water

chalky dry bones from moose skeleton, laced with new moss

crisp metallic air from shady cove on the lake

piercing deep purple spice of decaying leaves and pine cone litter on the forest floor

muscular, fleshy smell of mushrooms swarming on a rotting log

stinging toxic bite of creosote on the railroad tracks

high-pitched, powdery, sweet scent of old-growth fir tree bark

zesty tart essence of crushed blueberry leaves

sweet licorice, stainless steel grey lacy tapestry of falling rain

soapy scent of ancient bark lichen blooming brittle blue white

smell of white pine sap, like the peppery yellow sting of a rubber band snapping against skin

intoxicating perfume of raspberries in the sun, a drunken, floral fog

queasy acidic tartness of bug spray on sweaty skin

peeling apart layers of fallen birch bark, its light blue ache, paper thin sweetness

soft amber, musty, sneezy odor of fallen white pine needles underfoot

dusty, salty, iron rust of hot sand, like fingernails on a chalkboard

loamy, emerald glowing pelt of moss, reticent and barely fragrant

ribbons of drunken, syrupy flannel campfire breath

viscous, rancid heaviness of river muck, cloying like a too-rich dessert

juicy, pungent green tang of balsam fir needles, redolent of Christmas nostalgia

sickly coconut-scented greasy smell of sun lotion

rancid vinegary stink of dead perch on the shoreline

velvety buttery honeysuckle warm odor of chanterelle mushrooms in the dry river bed

plus a few detours...

Walking 633 steps along Hodgeman's beach from Amy's skinnydipping cove to point beyond Fat Lip beach, gathering white quartz stones in my pockets.

Building a miniature labyrinth (6 foot diameter), an homage to Richard Smithson and Richard Long.  974 stones.  3 hours.

Collecting unremarkable sticks (preferably smooth driftwood or beaver chewed wood from the lake shore) and binding them together with cotton string.  Installing and performing these in different ways.   Each stick becomes a physical container of memory, a fragment of thought, specific to the moment when and location where it was 'found,'  like trail markers or 'walking sticks' that guide, assist, and keep a record of the physical journey.

Integrating other weathered treasures discovered (rusted metal, bones, stones).

Another experiment.  100 sticks.

week four: physical sensation

barefoot pilgrimage around salmon point

walking, crawling, balancing, creeping, gripping, swaying, crab-walking my way around a rocky point in the Narrows in my bare feet, logging the physical sensations as they occur and later transcribing these onto my skin.

deliberately complicating the journey for myself by moving slowly and experiencing a range of sensations on the soles of my feet, as well as elsewhere in my body.

framing the walk as a pilgrimage to revisit the nostalgia of this location where I fished with my father.

noting that the awkward gymnastics required to write on the soles of my feet created its own set of physical sensations, many of them much less pleasant than the walking itself... 

week three: sound and vision

In reading Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing, I came across her discussion of the artist David Hockney’s ‘joiners’ in which he combined dozens or even hundreds of Polaroid photographs to explore the phenomenology of seeing.  Hockney writes that we actually see ‘in discrete, separate glimpses, which we then build up into our continuous experience of the world.’  I agree with Odell who suggests that ‘something like collage is at the heart of the unstable and highly personal process of perception.’  The three videos I made for this week’s assignment use a sort of collage approach in an effort to capture ‘a living impression’ of the ecosystem here in Jackman, Maine, filtered through my own nostalgia and reverence for this wild place -- my effort to cultivate the bioregionalism that Odell encourages.  From the overambitious stash of footage I accumulated (and had difficulty storing and transferring!) I found myself inevitably selecting clips more based on visual connections (and narrative potential) and less based on audio content.  In many cases, my novice recording techniques just yielded a lot of ear-splitting wind sounds, which was disappointing -- something to consider more carefully going forward.  Apologies, too, for uploading after the deadline.  Posting to YouTube in my small town took more than three hours, an interesting and ironic test of my patience and willingness to slow down...    

fleeting

north woods meditation

week two: sound

user909344223 · Attean Sound Collage 3, Running For Train