We are in constant movement and exploration. The wild is from where we get inspiration and also feel at home, ready to live and be. 10 years ago this year we built a wooden teardrop trailer and lived in it for a year, making art and enjoying the wilds.
After this year of wandering we ended up in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, randomly, but not arbitrarily. For the past decade we have built a home, studios, created a small mountain of art, created lifelong friendships and become part of this wonderful community. During that time we explored the deserts and mountains of the Southwest and Rockies.
We love so many places in this wide open world and yet we also see it changing more quickly than we could have ever imagined. Houses are appearing everywhere. Wild places are being trashed and fragile environments over used. Then there is drought and fire and a level of destruction above what is imaginable.
Last summer one of our favorite places on earth burned intensely for nearly a month. This wilderness was wild - truly, deeply, magically wild - but now has been ripped of it's topsoil by flooding after the complete burning of the vegetation. We walked up to a saddle where you can look miles up into the deep wild of these mountains and were overpowed by the destruction. We realized, right then, that we had to go back to living by and in the wild, because the wild is as big as it will ever be in our lifetime right now.
This is a journey of love and sorrow for us, a deep reflection upon a changing world and ancient beings changing within this new reality. We are a small part of the big process which is life on earth - and for this moment we must be in the wild portions of this lifecycle.
So we are going back on the road for extensive art investigations into the wild places we love so dearly. We've long wanted to do this, now there is no more excuse. We have spent the winter readying and testing our systems, readying our vehicle and otherwise preparing for this journey.
We've also been climbing rocks. Climbing is a tool to focus our minds and strengthen our bodies. Climbing tests us in a bare and powerful way and this sharpens the experience of the wild. We take in this intensity and meld it with our art to find something pure and raw.
The arc of this journey is to be exist in nature, to be part of her and at the mercy of the wild. We will open ourselves to what we are told and create art accordingly. There will be movement, painting, weaving and installations, unfolding, informting, cross pollinating. We are journeying to make art which is itself the creation; the journey is the destination.
