O'Keeffe & finding my own Ghost Ranch

The final days of my New Orleans are here. After this it will only be other's images, other's stories, and none of my own. It is a great relief, because others seem to see it in a bit better light than I can muster. I have learned so many things living here for the last five years, but the largest one is my need to find my own ghost ranch.

Georgia O'Keefe said painting was like walking on a knife, that she would do it all again if she could, and that if you fall off at least she spent her time doing something that she liked. She lived in a place called Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico where she spent her life painting after her husband died.

She went there to seek the privacy and solitary time that she needed.

In the past few years I have realized just how at home I feel in the great expanses of empty western desert. How alive and expansive, if I only remember to lotion. And a lot of it is because of not being surrounded by people but being able to really have quiet, and dark.

I often say that I do not feel culturally American. That I wish I lived in Europe with its socialism and train systems. I have never lived in the entire life holding quiet of the American west and I have never lived in the hive of Europe. So in truth I don’t really know.

I can only guess, postulate and wonder until I do it.

That was the premise on which I came here. I wanted to “make a living” sewing. I really thought I would be able to work with friends, be a part of the “vibrant” or fringe art “scene” here. Unfortunately people who were better friends within that group (and less qualified) were asked to costume design for those productions while I worked for movies and lifeless smaller theater companies. Oops! C’est La Vie!

No matter what I tried, the jobs seemed to spiral down into more and more lifelessness and this thing I once loved, turned into something I loathed.

The lesson here, that I am trying to take away is that, if you cannot maintain artistic control you lose your sense of love for your art. I didn’t even know I was an artist until I watched the 7 up series on Netflix. Do yourself a favor, watch it. It’s incredible. I didn’t even know I did art until I watched a random group of people grow up without an importance on art.
I realized then that I have been surrounded by it my entire life and that I had became blind to it.

For Christmas I gifted Chris a set of 32 color paint set, and in the past week when I have felt particularly bad, I have pulled out the paints and been soothed by the process.

As I seek my next home and hopefully my own Ghost ranch I hope I will hold onto that knowledge of what soothes and helps when things seem sad and become slowly solvent.


Thankyou Georgia O’Keeffe.

Walt Whitman and New Orleans Goodbye

It is almost as if i have already left.
I have quietly emptied my life of the
things that make a day.


Uncle Walt says it best:

The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day's work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?


Walt Whitman: Song of Myself, Part 51 

A 167 year old Sourdough Starter and Recipes from One Man's Wilderness

A couple of months ago I sent away for Carl Griffith 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough. (Send away for yours too, it only costs a stamp!) We started it with no problems and have been keeping it alive in the refrigerator where we feed it once a week because we only bake with it that often.

This past week we ran into some problems and it didn't revive and make a loaf like normal, so we decided to pull it out for a couple of days, feed it daily, and resuscitate it. The benefit of this is more sourdough.

Besides the fact that I had a foray into sourdough baking when i was 17, (one of the few years in my life where i was stable with a sane kitchen) I hadn't really thought about it even though i was stable again with a sane kitchen (Really, the 2nd time in my life, with my mom being a hoarder and then me moving around into punk house after punk house in my 20s). 

What brought it back was One Man's Wilderness, by Sam Keith from the journals and photographs of Richard Preonneke.

This book is basically one man's journals from his first year or two of living in the back country of Alaska. He went on to stay and lived there from 1967 through 1998. The journals are a very basic outline of what he did everyday, one of them keeping his sourdough alive because the man lived off of sourdough flapjacks and biscuits.

"I uncovered the sourdough starter, dumped two-thirds of it into a bowl, put three heaping teaspoons of flour back into the starter jar, added some lukewarm water, stirred and capped it. If i did this every time, the starter would go on forever.

To the starter bowl i added five tablespoons of flour, three tablespoons of sugar, and half a cup of dry milk, mixing it all together with a wooden spoon. I dribbled in lukewarm water until the batter was thin. Then I covered the bowl with a pan. The mixture would work itself into hotcake batter by morning.

The next morning was "Time now for the finishing touches to the sourdough starter. As I uncovered it I could smell the fermentation. I gave it a good stirring, then sprinkled half a teaspoonful of baking soda on top, scattered a pinch of salt, and dripped in a tablespoon of bacon fat. When these additions were gently folded into the batter it seemed to come alive. I let it site for a minute... then i dropped one wooden spoonful of batter, hissing onto the skillet. When bubbles appear all over, its time to flip...

Before doing the dishes, I readied the makings of sourdough biscuits. These would be a must for each day's supper. The recipe is the same as for hotcakes, but thicker, a dough that is baked."

Look at his flapjacks and rolls! Lovely!

We like to use this recipe when making biscuits, that are like fluffy tasty rolls:

A Crisis of Ignorance

I've been spending my morning reading about Buckminster Fuller. I could not believe how amazing of a man he was. I never thought to read about him but lately i've been really inspired by Kevin Kelly and while reading about the whole earth catalog, which I have only once gazed upon, I was squirreled away into a wiki rabbit hole and came upon Buckminster Fuller. 

In his young adult life, up until 35 he worked in meat packing plants and as a machinist. He was very poor and at one point he contemplated suicide to leave a life insurance policy to his wife and child. Instead of suicide he had a moment of great clarity:

"From now on you need never await temporal attestation to your thought. You think the truth. You do not have the right to eliminate yourself. You do not belong to you. You belong to Universe. Your significance will remain forever obscure to you, but you may assume that you are fulfilling your role if you apply yourself to converting your experiences to the highest advantage of others.^{[8]" x} Fuller stated that this experience led to a profound re-examination of his life. He ultimately chose to embark on "an experiment, to find what a single individual [could] contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity."^{[9] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller}

His first child died due to cold and drafty houses and thus began his research into geodesic domes and sustainability and using "waste" as resources. 

It's also been surprising to find the connections between his life and the ones that have shaped mine. Mostly having to do with his time at the Black Mountain College, and it's influence on many universities, one of them being New College of Florida, my alma mater.

The equally amazing thing I really garnered in reading about his life is his theories about connection and humans, and utopia needing everyone and being non exclusive. It seems strange that some of the things that would spurn from his ideas were ones that just didn't seem to work, ie Drop City, but also that it seems that many of his foresights are indeed coming into being and as i hope for the future, will involve renewable energies.

I think this lends itself to some of my obsession with the tiny houses and has to do with the idea that we could all live off grid and sustainably without sacrificing health, warmth, and knowledge.  Many of them contain composting toilets and solar panels that power the entire house. They also fit in with the way that society is becoming more mobile. 

Water source is the one thing you have to rely on outside of your home. And it is of course of dire concern as the future follows a path lined out by Big Business and Families like the Bush family who seem to have their future interests in it squirreled away: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/oct/23/mainsection.tomphillips especially as fracking grows in the USA poisoning more and more of our pure water sources. 

The thing is, Bucky was an optimist. "Fuller was a pioneer in thinking globally, and he explored principles of energy and material efficiency in the fields of architecture, engineering and design.^[25][26] He cited François de Chardenedes' opinion that petroleum, from the standpoint of its replacement cost out of our current energy "budget" (essentially, the net incoming solar flux), had cost nature "over a million dollars" per U.S. gallon (US$300,000 per litre) to produce. From this point of view, its use as a transportation fuel by people commuting to work represents a huge net loss compared to their earnings.^[27] An encapsulation quotation of his views might be, "There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance."^{[28][29][30]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller}

^{A crisis of Ignorance is about the most well put statement on the everlasting condition of humankind. Even when people think they are not, they are.} 

^{Which brings me back to my favorite song by Justin Hinds:}

The greatest thing is to know, that what you don't know you don't know.

Here's to the future and stop ignoring with our ignorance but instead become aware and able to understand dichotomies and the grey matter that is our lives. 2014!