Feet on the Ground

I've always loved exploring the neglected regions of neighborhoods, backyards, and now national parks and the city. Not only can you get away and be all alone, but you feel like that at every turn or behind every shrub there could be something new to be found, perhaps even undiscovered. When I lived at Satwiwa my best friend Carolyn was always a great companion for these outings. We both liked walking the grasslands and the small dry creek beds as we were always searching for micro-habitats and ecotones that could potentially harbor unique species rarely seen by most folks just trekking through. Sometimes we would find a Loggerhead Shrike atop a new perch and wonder, are there 2, or even 3 shrikes living here? Or we might find a hidden patch of wildflowers hanging on a distant ledge far from any maintained trail.

Now in the city I try and do the same thing and it's just as exciting there too. New murals, or an architectural gem sitting right in the middle of the noise, are just waiting to found and admired.

I can't say enough about the work of artists and urban explorers like Marie Lorenz who have been for awhile now exploring wild spaces in the midst of our biggest cities. Redefining exploration. Lorenz explores New York's waterways, forgotten shores, and derelict coastal infrastructure in her hand built boats. Her and others are showing us that there are wild and relatively unexplored places in large urban areas and they're largely under utilized, especially through modes of transportation that are seldom applied.

Finally we are starting to take note and people are pushing the boundaries all the time. Now is exciting time to be anywhere. My heroes are those who venture to those places nobody dares to go and then proceed to find and experience more than anybody could've imagined, including the explorers themselves.

Library of Dust

A friend recently showed me some of the work of photographer David Maisel's new project. Maisel's Library of Dust is a new book from the photographer which is made up of images from an old Oregon State Mental Hospital and the canisters of the crematal remains that were left there. These canisters have been left at the hospital because nobody ever claimed the bodies, and they have turned into beautiful objects that Maisel has photgraphed inside of the hospital where he set up a temporary studio. It's hard to explain how amazing the colors and the photos are, so take a trip over to his website to see for yourself.
My friend found this great preview of Maisel's work on a very cool blog that has been very popular for awhile and I'm stoked that I have found it, its called the BLDG Blog and it's written by Geoff Manaugh. The blog has got all sorts of interesting information on everything from architecture and urban exploration to the cosmos and how all that stuff relates to our lives.
This all sort of relates to one of the side projects that I have been working on here and there. It involves a bit of urban exploration, architectural photography, and ghost hunting. I don't have the time, resources, or access to adequately do the job like David Maisel and Stephen Wilkes have done with their respective projects and books: Wilke's Ghosts of Freedom: Ellis Island and Maisel's Library of Dust. Although I have been finding some places and objects that enable me to capture some images of the leftovers of people's memories, and the ghosts of our dark histories. The image above is from this project and it should be done around the end of summer, where I will then put them all together and make a Blurb book, is that enough links?