"34 Days to Washington: Taking Measure Across the American Landscape" is a process art project involving bicycling 2034 miles from Springfield, Illinois to Washington D.C.following the meandering route that Abraham Lincoln road on his inaugural train to Washington D. C..
This work will attempt to address the interelationships between movement through the landscape under human power and the contempletive low impact space it affords. During the time of travel, I reflected on the power of a cultural icon, well being in a civil society, contemporary aesthetics, and the individual process of conceptually mapping a landscape. By retracing the route Abraham Lincoln traveled from Springfield, Illinois to Washington D.C. after he was elected, it is my intent to explore the validity of Lincoln in a contemporary figure in civil society as well as the personal mythologies I see in American history.
Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
June 2-July 2, 2011
Newzones Gallery, Calgary, Canada
December 1, 2011
For me, the thing that really defines the new world is a mythic journey; as well
as the movement west and into the landscape. So I decided to take one of those
epic journeys myself.
Rather than venture off in some arbitrary direction, I chose to journey east.
That path was and is a defining route for people aspiring to positions of power,
but for me the interesting thing was that it opposed the notion of 'moving
westward'. Here I began, with an open mind in search of a wilderness landscape,
even though the east might have seemed over-trampled with crowded
cities and urban congestion. I prepared by packing Thoreau's "Backwoods and
Along the Seashore", and to make the passage more intriguing, I decided to
travel via bicycle for what would be over 2000 miles..