From New Orleans to Hopedale
37+ miles and two water crossings
14-15 February 2009
Orleans and St Bernard Parishes, Louisiana
++++++++++
with special thanks to all at A Studio in the Woods :
. Lucianne & Joe Carmichael
. Ama Rogan
. Cammie Hill-Prewitt
. Anne Mueller
. Dave Baker
Monique Verdin
Mollie Day
Selina & Joe Gonzalez
Matine and Xavier Verdin
Capt Mike Williams
Ken Wells
Bob Turner, Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East
Stevan Spencer, Orleans Levee Board
Lake Borgne Basin Levee Board
Chris Gilmore, US Army Corps of Engineers
Randy Boudreaux, Southern Scrap Recycling
Bayou Bienvenue Flood Gate Operator :
Mark Theard, Orleans Levee District
Bayou Dupree Flood Gate Operator :
Captain Russell S Gelvin, Jr., Lake Borgne Basin Levee District
Supervisor, Pumping Station :
Peter S. Bauer, Lake Borgne Basin Levee District
Jan Gilbert
Dawn M. Barrios
Ryan Prewitt
the porpoise of MRGO
that donkey on the levee
the snake that didn't strike me
and the coyotes of Hopedale
letter to New Orleans musician Trombone Shorty aka Troy Andrews.
hello Troy,
I read about you in some of my recent research for coming to New Orleans.
I am coming to make some new walking works as part of an art residency with Tulane University. I read your walking piece/article in a newspaper -- would you be interested in taking a walk and showing me some of your neighborhoods?
Sorry I will miss your upcoming SF performance dates but I hope to see you in New Orleans. I am a San Francisco artist & I work with many musicians on the project Rock & Roar.
Well I cannot seem to get your email address from your band website (was up the other week but not tonight).
If you want to talk or take a walk as part of my new art project with Tulane Univ, please give me a call or email.
I wheeled my suitcase full of art goodies out the door at 11:59 PM so we were walking with suitcase from 2008-into-2009 this year; emphasis on art + communication, with walking as a given now.
I know that you are very very tired now. Maybe too tired to read, so you & Sally are together and she is reading this aloud to you. You know how much I love you two, my dear friends, and I wish I could be there right now to spend time with you – to be present, with compassion and love, to keep you company & to be together. You are always in my heart Peter. That may sound corny but it is true! Maybe because I live so far away I always carry this lifetime of experiences, moments, memories with me – so for us it is folk mass (long ago), catching up in the driveway, sitting at the kitchen table, walking our dogs, the hole in the hedge between our houses --- the little moments, the Big moments. I kept the wrapper from the Stollen cake you brought me last Christmas – here – wrapping your letter- because it makes me smile – you make me smile Peter! Thank you for being my friend – I cherish our friendship always.
I found something recently while walking the dog at Half Moon Bay – the beach we walked when you came to visit – yes in August I was walking and when I came up from the beach I stopped with the dog to take my shoe off & dump the sand out. When I leaned on the fence post to stabilize myself, I saw this stone cross inside the fence post – someone left it there. I don’t always know why I find things but I CAN recognize their significance – things stick out to me and sometimes they really do STICK OUT, as in this case! I thought you might like to have it now you know the story and how it reminds me of you, of us, of our walk there – our day together. The stone – I forget what kind it is – it as a nice feel to it and a little weight, feels good in the hand, if you hold it.
I have enclosed some photos from my Florida walk in April – when I jumped out of a plane & walked 24 miles by myself in the dark on the Canaveral National Seashore. It was grueling, exhausting, difficult, and at the same time, enlightening. When I was really really tired and maybe a bit concerned about being washed away to sea or stopping and not getting up all by myself, I found a letter on the small strip of beach, at my feet while walking, it was tied to a balloon and the wind carried it hundreds of miles then it washed up on the shore at my feet, and I found it in the dark! It made me so happy to know there was communication from a stranger, that this synchronicity happened. I was so tired I could not break the plastic string to open the letter while I was walking in the night but I tied the balloon to my backpack and it knocked around keeping my company. Also, the moon was near full and cast my shadow ahead of me in the sand as I walked. I could now see the shadow of the balloon cast in front of me as well – it really cheered me up and I didn’t feel so alone on my exhausting journey. I hope this letter cheers you up like the one I found on the beach – and like the balloon I may not be in your direct line of sight but you know I’m with you wherever your journey takes you.
I love you very much Peter – I know you know that!
yes getting ready for Kings of Leon tomorrow night at The Warfield. I keep thinking about how things intersect and feed, seed.
I first heard of Kings of Leon through Chrissie Hynde.
WARFIELD CHRISSIE HYNDE KINGS of LEON HUTCHENCE, INXS BRUCE COCKBURN ROCK & ROAR
SB: [laughs] But you were inducted into the Hall [Rock & Roll Hall of Fame] by Neil Young.
CHRISSIE HYNDE: That was the good part. It was absolutely amazing. I mean, getting to play with Neil--it was worth 25 years of playing for that moment.
SB: Were you surprised that he said he was inspired by you guys?
CHRISSIE HYNDE: I think it's the other way around. Is that what he said?
SB: Yeah.
CHRISSIE HYNDE: You know, I guess it works like that in the rock game. I met Kings of Leon recently, and I said to them, "Wow, you guys. Thanks for getting me through the last year of my life." And they said, "Thanks for getting us through high school." That really cheered me up.
One of Schindler's and Poché's most intriguing collaborations, however, is the Societé de Sainte Anne, a Carnival walking club, which they started in 1969 along with their friend Jon Newlin, a freelance writer whose work is published in The Times-Picayune and Ambush Magazine.
Ste. Anne, like so many of the precious ephemera of Mardi Gras, defies attempts to define it. As a walking club, the only requirement for membership is that you know about it. Every Mardi Gras morning, a large group of people, wearing the most over-the-top costumes imaginable (including the kitchen sink), arrives at someone's house somewhere in the Bywater. Soon the Storyville Stompers show up, and everyone follows the band through the Bywater into the French Quarter up Royal Street, gathering more costumers at various points along the way, until they come to Canal Street where they await the arrival of Rex.
In Ste. Anne, everyone costumes; there are no spectators, only participants. Without any stated doctrine or structure, the Ste. Anne parade, in its spontaneity and disorganization, resembles the old Creole cavalcades that sprawled through New Orleans' streets in the 1830s.
Tommy sends a link for sphereing as we have talked about walking on water and crossing the Mississippi in a clear ball a la The Avengers or some early reference to Boy In A Plastic Bubble.
i receive in the mail today a package from Edith Abeyta. it is a handkerchief i made during my Banff residency just about a year ago, for a collaborative show with Edith in LA November 2007. shown here in my Banff 2007 studio, i made it for Ingrid.
i left the river and walked among the trees
for Ingrid ... happy in a beautiful place. Banff Alberta Canada. 1987 - 2007. a devine.
installation view. as part of “Blue Drawings” with Edith Abeyta’s Cry Me A River installation. in the show: Three Tales of Sorrow. El Camino College Art Gallery. Torrance, CA. 2007.
