NATURE

 

I was invited by a friend of mine, Brandon Bragg, to join him on the Appalacian Trail.  I walked app. 600 miles in 2 months with 5 pounds of art supplies.  This small selection documents my first and only long term experience with nature.

 

 

 

Brandon teaching me how to follow the blazes.

 

 

I had an American Camper tent that was made in China and on the first night it rained through my tent sideways. 

 

 

I climbed up on the edge of a cliff to see the sunset and the clouds were so low that I opened my mouth and ate them.

 

 

Leave no trace, only your shadow.

 

 

Soaking my feet in the creek. The rocks loked like gold and I made this painting by drawing with watercolor crayons and then I put the page in the water and let the motion of the creek finish it for me.

 

 

There had a been a fire here the year before. You could see some plants were starting to grow back and the sun was like a giant blister.

 

 

I drew this one while walking and let my sweat drip down on it all day. I also kept track of all of my water intke.

 

 

I came up on a bear. Immediately I started walking backwards and said to Brandon, "There's a bear - right - there!" And then the bear thrashed the leaves showed his teeth and started to pull himself up. My knees started buckling and I said, "I'm falling". But then Brandon just yellled at it like a 2 year old and it left.

 

 

Out of body perspective of a poison ivy outbreak.

 

 

While I was drawing the little chipmunks one of them mooned me!

 

 

This morning I was hungover something awful!

 

 

After the rain this turle came out to inspect the power lines.

 

 

The first time I ever saw a wild rattlesnake! 

 

 

Found a snake skin and started getting calluses on my feet.

 

 

As Little Jack Horner in the blackberry corner.

 

 

While I was drawing this rattlesnake it kept inching closer. It made me feel small. I wanted to get him to strike the page but was afraid he might bite my thumb instead. I chickened out. The blood was from shaving earlier.

 

 

Skipping along on the giant rocks and yet I also felt like I was one of them.

 

 

We found this note stuck to a tree and someone's homework and I also stepped in human waste that day.

 

 

Palmerton, PA heavy metal poisoning everything was dead except the blueberries and they were clear.

 

 

I climbed on top of a fire tower and spun around in circles so fast until I saw my face in the world.

 

 

I developed a condition I called 'bearanoia'. I heard tbears everywhere at night and then one of them collapsed my tent with its butt.

 

 

Pretending to be the hiker on the cover of the data book for that year but when we got to the exact spot the water beneath the boards was all dried up.

 

 

With two weeks of food on my back I was feeling like a lean mean hiking machine.

 

 

My reflection in my cooking pan lid.

 

 

At Harpers Ferry, WV holding a pike that John Brown had ordered and shipped desguised as bibles.

 

There were so many bugs here that I stuck some of them to the book with glue where they landed.