Hooray for Heidi!

Heidi just let us know that the Danish Arts Council is generously providing two small grants to help with the funding of the Bledsoe project! We've been fortunate so far in this process to meet some incredible folks in Texas, like artist Jonathan Whitfill and the great folks at Texas Tech University, who have lent their time and support to us. And now with the support of the Danish Arts Council, we're realizing that the installation in September is really going to happen. But with this, is also the realization that we still need support to take us the rest of the way there. Please check out our page on kickstarter.com, Earthbound Moon: Site 001, even if you're able to help even with a $5 pledge towards our goal. Many thanks.

Carson is going to start working with the sign fabricator and Lee is headed back to Texas in the coming weeks... more photos and updates soon!

Kickstarter Page Launched!

To help with funding for our fall installation in Bledsoe, Texas, we've just launched our own page on Kickstarter.com: Earthbound Moon: Site 001

It's a website for creative projects that need some help with funding. It'll be up and running for the next 39 days, so please check it out and help us reach our goal. There are great gifts to go along with the different levels of pledges, including limited edition postcards from the artist sent from Bledsoe, prints of the finished sculpture and even dioramas of the sculpture site! Anything you can give will be much appreciated. Thanks!

Here's all the up-to-date info:

City Gardens

While Lee has been on tour of the east coast exploring and scouting locations, I've been working on Earthbound Moon's first local site (well, local for some of us). I've had the great pleasure of meeting and working with Tamara Loewenstein, who is part of Urban Share Community Gardening Project. The volunteers of Urban Share have created the incredible Free Farm at Gough and Eddy Streets in San Francisco. All of the produce grown at the garden is given away to those in need at no cost.

EbM's role at the Free Farm is to work together with Tamara (Curator and Community Arts Coordinator for the Free Farm), the surrounding community and the garden volunteer community to have an artist install work along the garden's Eddy Street fence. It may take some time before we reach the installation point, but over the past two weekends I've been lucky to spend time working at the garden.


The Free Farm welcomes volunteers to help with all the tasks necessary to keep the garden producing. If you every feel the need to get dirty and garden, they have work hours on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10am to 2pm and everyone can help.

Updated schedule

2010:
Bledsoe, Texas with artist Heidi Hove (in progress)
Portland, OR (negotiating site; artist chosen)

2011:
San Francisco, CA (site confirmed; curatorial committee forming to look for artist)
Lebanon, NH (proposal for site being written; artist curation to begin in July or August)
Baja, Mexico (tentative)
Portland, OR (tentative)
WA (site negotiation in July)
TX (site negotiation in June)

2012:
Crete, Greece
Mantino, IL
Cairo, Egypt
Portland, OR
Greenland, NH (near Portsmouth)
WA
TX

2013:
Tacoma, WA
Evanston, IL
Portland, OR
Holyoke, MA
WA
TX
AK
Denmark
Canada

2014:
Portland, OR
WA
TX
NH
HI
AK
The Philippines

We love NH & NH loves us

I was in Lebanon NH for about 23 hours. 23E has a great friend there in Adam Blue, who most of us know from grad school in SF. He and his wife are caretakers for a substantial land trust. And he is the Education Director at a pretty amazing arts institution in Lebanon, AVA Gallery & Arts Center.
Adam picked me up at the Greyhound/Peter Pan bus terminal, and while he finished up work in Lebanon, I dropped into their info center and asked the two ladies working there,
"Is there anything special I should do while here in Lebanon?"
The ladies looked confused and replied,
"No."
That's straight up New England honesty for you.
Left to my own devices I wandered around, finding a faboo Asian market run by an Indian woman. We chatted about Lebanon for awhile.

I also spent some time in the local comics store (couldn't resist a half price Poison Ivy action figure, who is now my trip mascot) and rummaging in the The Old Yankee junk store.

After work, Adam and I headed back to his place, where we ate with his wife and kids (all stellar company, and a pure joy to be around. His kids are wild yoginis, who demonstrated numerous poses for me. Nothing is cuter that a 4 year old and a 2 year old doing yoga! Their dog, Sadie, must also be mentioned, as she was freshly shorn, and looked and felt like a big happy teddy bear.) Then we looked at two possible sites for an EbM install - one is along a snowmobile path, and the other in a very isolated field. We chatted about the project, and I'm pleased to say that I am writing up a proposal for his land this month. An install in Lebanon could happen as early as 2011!

The land along the snowmobile trail. We're thinking to commission an artist to create a work a good ten feet up in the trees, so that it's visible to snowmobilers in the winter.

As if this wonderful news weren't enough, and baby yoginis weren't enough, and a bouncy teddy bear weren't enough, Adam let me drive his tractor (see top), took me for a row boat trip around his pond, and almost lost a shoe running when I kicked a wasp hive that made me curious. At the end of all these adventures, I duly examined myself from head to toe in my first tick check as an adult. Necessary, as NH is the current national leader in Lyme disease cases.

48 hours later I rolled into Portsmouth, NH (from Boston, where my uncle is hosting me) to meet with Carson's cousin Charlie. He and his family have a couple acres, and are very excited about being involved with EbM. We're talking about a 2012 install there.

Our goal is ten sites in ten years in New England (all within a few hundred miles of each other, so that a bike tour of the set could be completed in a week or a car tour in a weekend), and this gets us off to a very strong start! So, yeah, New Hampshire, Earthbound Moon loves you.

Leaving Holyoke, MA

 I have had an amazing residency here in Holyoke at Parson's Hall. In particular, I need to thank Kari Gatzke who subtly and substantially shifted my residency from room to room and board. She has crafted and served amazing lunches and dinners most every day over the past two weeks. My gratitude is profound.

Last you heard I was watching the Lost finale and then visiting Melissa at Wistariahurst.
Let's get Lost out of the way. I was fine with the ending. I loathed that half the show was commercials (And particularly offended by the AT&T ad ripping off Jean-Claude & Cristo. This is a corporation that uses IP law to stifle competition and development - who keeps America's technological development retarded in comparison to the rest of the developed world's by abusing copyright and trademark law - stealing an artist's practice so blatantly that they need to put a disclaimer at the end of their ad. Just profound evil.) I was bored that half of the actual show was vaselined-lens memories. But the remaining 1/4 was about as enjoyable as any Lost episode. Of course, I stopped watching mid-way through the second season, so...

Melissa, the director of Wistariahurst Museum, was wonderful. She had great advice on navigating the project in Holyoke. In particular, she wondered if the city really needs a new park, or if 23E might not be better off trying to reach an arrangement to work in one of the many beautiful parks the city already has. I have biked around Holyoke a great deal in the past weeks, and indeed it is truly blessed with an abundance of parks and public spaces - commons that are under-used right now. If 23E can find a way to help activate or enliven these spaces, it may well be that we'll be doing far more good than trying to add another commons. Something we'll be thinking about in the coming weeks.

 Holyoke is an incredibly beautiful city.

Sadly, after my meeting with Melissa, a nagging computer problem erupted full bloom on my laptop. And I've spent the last four days sequestered in Parson's backing up data, recovering data, troubleshooting drives, re-installing drivers and software, etc. This is particularly important because I have a SleepWalks (one of my bands/performance troupes) show at Diapason Gallery in NYC on June 5, and need the computer and drives running seamlessly by then. SleepWalks runs from 9pm-9am, with my laptop pushed to its limits creating soundscapes, so any problems can be extra vexing. As of this writing, I have been BSOD free for 36 hours. Hopefully by this evening I can test my audio software and hardware.

That computer issue eviscerated plans for my second week in Holyoke. I snuck in a few bike rides around town, and went out to visit a few nonprofits in the flats of Holyoke, but these were abridged elements of my larger plan to go out and learn as much about the local communities as possible. I'll be back at year's end, I hope. And will continue to learn about and try to engage with the members of the city I now count as friends until then. Who knows, maybe we will even own a piece of property for an EbM site by then.

One of the potential sites I'm looking at for EbM and SG-23E

And now, the next four weeks, a whirlwind of EbM activity. it goes like this:
June 1, Lebanon, NH to look at a potential site.
June 2, Boston, MA to visit my uncle, a historian and researcher for the MA Historical Society.
June 4, Portsmouth, NH to look at a potential site.
June 5, SleepWalks performance in NYC.
June 6, Philadelphia, PA to see friends!
June 9, Baltimore, MD to put the finishing touches on the mixes of the 3rd and 4th Stowe-Pembleton Project albums.
June 12, Easton, PA to look at a potential city for EbM.
June 12, Pittsburgh, PA to meet folks about potential sites, and hopefully meet a potential member of one of my other collectives, The Berlin Office.
June 13, Chicago, IL; Champaign, IL; Manteno, IL to look at potential sites, and to record with my band My Special Porpoise.
June 20, Omaha, NE to meet a baby!
June 21, Lubbock TX; Bledsoe, TX; Plainview, TX to look at potential sites for EbM; to meet with folks in Bledsoe and Lubbock to prepare for September's installs in those cities.
June 24, SF, CA two weeks back in the bay working to pay for all of this!
July 7-July 21, Cascadia - Portland, OR; Lincoln City, OR; Tacoma, WA; Olympia, WA; Port Angeles, WA; Port Townsend, WA; and a few other places in the mighty NorthWest, all for potential sites and collaborators.

And now I am off to Wistariahurst to take the official tour!

The really important things

In about an hour I have an appointment with Melissa Boiselle, the director of Wistariahurst Museum here in Holyoke, MA. I'll provide the wonderful backstory on my connection to Wistariahurst in a later post, because right now I want to upload a photo Torsten took of Tony Discenza and I are participating in 2010's biggest (American) cultural event.
Yes, that's right, we're watching Lost.

Hearty Thank Yous to Parson's Hall Project Space

Right now the members of Earthbound Moon are spread across the US: Amy in LA; Libby in Chicago; Alex and Carson in SF; and knowmadic me, I'm in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The Carry-On Office installed in Parson's Hall Project Space, Holyoke MA

I'm here on a residency pursuing our 2011 site. I am also working on the project SG-23E, which gave birth to EbM nine months ago, after an earlier residency here in 2009. SG-23E envisions the transformation of a city block into a publicly accessible sculpture garden with an attached residency. It's moving along slowly, which is pretty awesome.

Hearty thanks are due Parson's Hall Project Space for making all of this possible.
As well, I really need to thank Brosenfrenz, LLC.
And the most gracious hostess ever, and frightening Scrabble wiz, Kari Gatzke.
Finally, all of the people who have been kind enough to meet with and support me here:

Tim Murphy of River Valley Realty Services
Chris Blair
Chris Nelson
Melissa Boiselle

A little cellphone docu of the 23E Studios studio where we shot scenes for A Remembrance of Now on Saturday. Thanks Torsten, Matt, and Chris!

What are we up to?

Here's a little taste of what might happen at our site in SF, courtesy image manipulator extraordinaire, Alex Clausen:

Holyoke, MA part 2

Well, I didn't buy a property yesterday. Perhaps I was overoptimistic in my post. Realtor Tim Murphy did show me a fair number of lots EbM may be able to purchase or lease, though. Today I am drifting through a list of potential sites on holyoke.org, and sending the lot info to Tim so he can check into the details of different properties. Maybe when I return this Winter, it will be to sign paperwork.

At 9:45am EST I am speaking with a landowner in Portsmouth NH about leasing some of his property for an upcoming installation. I expect to go out to Portsmouth (on the Hound!) on Saturday to meet him and look at the property.

The other big task for today is putting the finishing touches on our proposal for a grant from Southern Exposure. Cross your fingers for us.

Holyoke, MA, part 1

It's 07.00 in Massachusetts, and I am preparing to head out for a morning with realtor Tim Murphy.
By mid-day, I hope to be able to post a photo of the property EbM is purchasing for our install here next year.
And with luck, the property on which we are going to install our much larger sculpture garden project, SG-23E.
And because nothing is a greater pariah than a blog with lots of words and no pictures, here's the view out my office window here in the Flats of Holyoke:

A tentative schedule

A week or so ago, Alex, Carson and I went through our list of possible sites. From this list we created a 5 year plan for EbM. The majority of these sites are still in the negotiating stage. And some that are close to confirmed are not reflected here, because we are thinking of them as sites we can slot in once we get a feel for how busy 2012 and 2013 are.
In some sense I feel this posting is premature, but ultimately, I think it is good for us to share the scope of the project. In every case, we have established connection with the sites on this list, and our initial discussions lead us to believe they are realistic possibilities.

2010:
Bledsoe, Texas with artist Heidi Hove
Portland, OR

2011:
San Francisco, CA
Holyoke, MA
Baja, Mexico
Portland, OR
WA
TX

2012:
Crete, Greece
Mantino, IL
Cairo, Egypt
Portland, OR
NH
WA
TX

2013:
Tacoma, WA
Evanston, IL
Portland, OR
NH
WA
TX
AK
Denmark
Canada

2014:
Portland, OR
WA
TX
NH
HI
AK
The Philippines

Where only a state is listed, I left out the city because I felt presumption might harm the discussions with landholders. In Hawaii's case we have begun looking for land, but do not have a particular city in mind yet. We are looking for a lava flow.

You may also note that certain locales earn repeated mention. In certain metropolises (and in the case of New England, a national region)  we are attempting to install a sculpture a year for a decade. We hope to work with local government and bike coalitions to create bike paths and bike tours between the EbM artworks as part of sustainable, cultural enrichment.

Coming soon to Bledsoe, TX