Bear Cans--My Sierra safe deposit boxes of calorie cache

 

Kotwa Project: The Circus of Destruction

Each night embedded with wilderness Rangers (on two 8 day ‘tours’ into the back country) A ritual is performed by all, when every trace of food, garbage, insecticides, lotions and pharmaceuticals are packed into each members ‘bear can’ for the night—Cans that are presumed to be indestructible vessels that bears can play with till they grow bored or frustrated with prior to abandoning your calorie cache unconsumed. 

The nightly positioned cache of cans is one point on the ‘Bear-Muda-triangle’ ranger jargon for the recommended 100-foot per side layout of sleeping camp, cooking area and bear can cache. (An abstract ideal I rarely saw employed)

Gni Gnah Loof, added to this ritual, and to the cache, for ‘Gni Gnah Loof’ carried three bear cans instead of one in his oversized pack-- one with his food, one containing a wind chime cut off from the wind, and a super-sized can with an accordion within. Each night these three cans are added to the camps cache. Gni Gnah Loof performs a slow ‘dance’ just beyond the post dinner 'cook site' conversation each evening on the trail .

Gni Gnah Loof,  tips and rolls the accordion can as a bear might—these manipulations enacted in slow motion  elicit the long tones of accordian  expansion and closure--these are accompanying  an under the breath incantation that Gni Gnah Loof resights requesting that bears do not turn themselves into fools.

Bear look at the food I have 'brung', my wild ways I have long forgotten.

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool 

Begging for buckets and twirling batons

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 

Trading to forage for instant raisins in porridge

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
Rub a dub dubbing my mouth soap bubble up my snout

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
These Ramen noodles making me a pet poodle

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
Rolling all cutely for M&M booty.

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
Spastic on the ground turning  barrels round round

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match,
 see how I am a fool. 
Popping jellybean perscriptions 'till my eyes are a-spinning

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
Tangled in licorice whips a dope fiend with only one wish

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
Entertaining humans by gobbling creams of their grooming

Bear, look how clownish I am, being an accordion playing bear, boxing in a rigged match, 
see how I am a fool. 
Dancing for trail mix that makes the gut sick

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Lick under stones the orange ants I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Shake oaks for acorns I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm, never buy the ad mans jingle.

Claw rotted brown logs for fatty grubs I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Suckle tiny violet flowers, I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Devour the geometry of mushrooms I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Graze green meadow flavor I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle

scratch down to roots I have forgotten.

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle

Snap hopper bodies I have forgotten

Bear remain wild , wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Crunch the carrion marrow I have forgotten

Bear remain wild, wary is your lucky charm never buy the ad mans jingle.

Dig yellow jacket treasure I have forgotten

Bear look how hungry I am, what a Clown I have become, my wild ways I have long forgotten.

 Kotwa project: Moonlight Kitchen

Action and incantation are offered as a ‘medicine bundle’ aimed to protect both the wildness of bear diets and the safety of human calories. In sixteen nights performing this ritual no bear touched any of our party’s food or equipment—while other tour teams adjacent to our locations reported bear incidents inclusive of shredded tents, partially consumed backpacks, a chewed up two way radio and ingested hand lotion.

NOTES: I had began thinking about accordions early when thinking about  the compaction of soil in camp sites—the mournful squeeze of our burden on the breath of a site, how I might give voice to the mute voice of soil over tread upon.

The bear I defend against with plastic can I secretly root for – Could I collaborate with this most wild thing--in fantasy we bear and I would create together…bear wrestling with  the circus cans like kids with presents.b As I worked this thread it became clear that if I were successful it would mean I had afflicted my own estrangement from wilderness being upon my bear collaborator –my almond joy bar in bear can was a typhoid Mary’s Kleenix to the bear out there—my Wasa-Krisps the seat to the unseating of a wild bear--the first cause of a cause and effect chain that had already tamed and destroyed most of the worlds wilds, and done so to my kinds (human) benefit. I began to feel an earth alien and hoped to arrive by way of benevolent spaceship.The only ethical action being  the failure of the overture for inappropriate interaction.

I began to script a hope-- without religion 'a prayer' for the non encounter – yet one that still contained my wish for the risks and possibility of real contact.

Actors entertain! Bring on dancing bears for my flashing camera…let them serenade me. Provide me the raw ingrediants for my souvenir story of heroic adventures—Sing for your super bear! Beg me to assign poetry to your perfection. Please perform as salavating brute , then as cutie pie furry  eight foot tall toddler, or perform a greatful winnie the pooh smacking lips and gazing  my way with thankful eyses -Perfect bear is what I received, a bear  away in the woods roaming with indifference possibly miles away from my cheddar cheese and dried pineapple rings--away with the rock and  them without need of my kind. There will be no colaboration  only an unhealthy overture. Be wary bear—replaces beware of bears— this is KOTWA spirit and catalyst for Kotwa and the circus of destruction emerged.


the following images codify the musical circus bear

As it turned out  in the mountains only I played the accordion in the barrel, only I wrestled with these circus cans filled with curried beef, olive oil and parmesan pastas that I had hauled heavily into wilderness-ness. The difficulty of the overture coupled with its rejection have ramifications and then implications these are the content of the project

No shredded satins, resulted, no mouth sculpted plastic was made, no two way exchange or ingested hand lotion occurred—it is the bear absent that is the work--and this is success and not as sour grapes – my prayer was  fulfilled.  There is also disappointment I artist and you the would be viewer alike would prefer to see the bear hear his  ironic composition of inqury—If you, like my ‘other self’ long to see bears tossing musical cans about allah Nirvanna—if you’d buy the Bear songs mp3 as a girl on the trail told me she'd certainly do—then we are alike. And we have  adverted success. This is KOTWA--an act, of offering—for we are keepers of the wilderness act, not exploiters of wilderness residents.

KOTWA ritual implemented places our entertainment, pleasure, pride, finances and ego well behind our love of these last shreds of a once continuous wilderness and our unimposing presence among the remains

Kotwa Project: Gni Gnah Loof performing: The longing for dreams

Kotwa Project: Gni Gnah Loof: Additional heads so I can see more clearly

 

Kotwa Project: Gni Gnah Loof:  Additional heads so I can see more clearly

 

Up on the Piute, the rangers had there work and I as Gni Gnah Loof was free to explore—I began wandering up slope towards glacial lakes and Icy fragments drawn ever higher and further off trail by the lure of a lake more filled by sky, my ability reach fresher vistas, and the swing of my chime filled bear can—which mediated the spaces between steps and terrain, breath and motions bodily and geologic.

The rhythms of passing over stone, the swing of the can, and the arrival at overlooks built into a trance like progression upward deeper and less cluttered. High above the tree line in a world of only stone water ice sun and the stirring of grasshoppers—I found the elusive solitude and its affecting powers—marking my way with only gesture—leaving only the muted sound of the enclosed wind-chime that stroked distance and presence with color.

 As artist and as wilderness experience the revelation was that though I performed, performing was not central and largely vapid—that is to say that an audience that shifted my actions away from centered experience was superfluous—but not un welcomed for when these gestured merged with  genuine immersion they had  the most value for myself and any other –the wilderness itself consistently and correctly unaffected and beautifully indifferent.

Gni Gnah Loof, is the central quasi-fictional character within the Kotwa Project—This Kotwa teacher, detective and creator of rituals walked and climbed over a hundred miles on and off trail. His headdress of many velvet eyes over mosquito netting obscures his physical vision--but allows for the establishment of temporal cairns to acknowledge sites of significance or to serve as a surrogate central fire to gather round.

Kotwa Project: The sound is not the medicine, only its marker. As Gni Gnah Loof wanders the talus fields, scree slopes, summits, lakes, saddles and glacial remains above the tree line he swings his rattle--a bear can that contains a wind chime. The chime within resembling thought and mind within the skull, and contemporary human within the natural environ—able to sing either from conscious swaying if free or if muffled by containment

   


Wilderness statute insists that all monuments here be temporal, that no fires burn above 10,000 feet of elevation, that no structure are erected, that all signs of human activity (exempting those of ‘heritage’ be erased, and that nature’s placement of stone or pinecone is left undisturbed—Therefore costumed discourse regarding the introduction of the exotics resulting from our presence was my primary tactic-- for anything brought in or along beyond your naked body and desires for survival might be thought of as exotic-alien and therefore intrusive upon the wilderness character—not just what’s in your pack, but also what’s in your head seems non indigenous to these places, for my thoughts were from another world, another plane, one that shifts interests toward human desire and away from unfettered wilderness and its expansive solitude.

 

Wilderness statute insists that all monuments here be temporal, that no fires burn above 10,000 feet of elevation, that no structure are erected, that all signs of human activity (exempting those of ‘heritage’ be erased, and that nature’s placement of stone or pinecone is left undisturbed—Therefore costumed discourse regarding the introduction of the exotics resulting from our presence was my primary tactic-- for anything brought in or along beyond your naked body and desires for survival might be thought of as exotic-alien and therefore intrusive upon the wilderness character—not just what’s in your pack, but also what’s in your head seems non indigenous to these places, for my thoughts were from another world, another plane, one that shifts interests toward human desire and away from unfettered wilderness and its expansive solitude.

I encountered few humans here and when I did we paused together sharing Kotwa gestures (ways of being in the wilderness in keeping with wilderness character), information of terrain, and the events or observations of our stays –but mostly simply expressing the collective wonderment of place.

One of these meeting resulted in:

http://www.bytwerk.com/sierra/2013.htm

Duane McDiarmid (second from the left) among the Calvinists

He was wandering through the Sierra with a stupendous pack (about 80 pounds, he said), including three bear canisters. The one in the picture had chimes in it — to let the bears know one was coming, and since they didn’t want to be circus bears, his amusing theory was that they would go elsewhere. Another had, apparently, an accordion. The third had food. He was only carrying the one with the chimes when we met. He is a fan of using tree leaves as toilet paper (not a bad idea, although at 11,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada pine needles night be less effective). A previous enterprise involved a solar-powered ice cream maker in the midst of the Nevada desert. The idea was to cause some pleasure, but also to suggest that perhaps we take too much with us into the wilderness.

We wandered about barren Mesa Lake, then over to Tomahawk Lake, which is definitely worth a visit. After a pleasant day of wandering about this high, open country, we headed back to camp.

 

The Kotwa project 2013, is a series of remote performances supported by an Aldo and Leonardo Fellowship, Art Ranch and the Wilderness division of the U.S. Forest Service to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. My fellowship was situated in the John Muir Wilderness Area. The Wilderness Act includes both highly specific prohibitions and protections but also the esoteric ‘shape shifting’ language of “maintaining wilderness character”. But who or what represents wilderness character in our era? How will we be guided across this terrain? This is the purpose of the Kotwa (Keepers of the Wilderness Act), and Gni Gnah Loof, (Hanging Fool--a shamanesque instigator and player in the Wilderness Theater).

My project recorded and fictionalized actions that sit between the performed and the simple enactments that make up living on the trail. Like my happenstance audience of Rangers, Hikers and Mule-drivers, I negotiated the legal statutes, environmental extremes, and a nuanced role-playing that is a seamless part of ‘Contemporary Wilderness’. Motivated by a schism of roles, liaison between public and Rangers, interrogator and social critic of ‘wilderness as a concept’ and individual explorer authentically seeking the transcendental eureka. I investigated how conditioned preconceptions, fantasies, fears and the re enactments of prescribed roles transform the wilderness into a theater--

The documentation of the work (panoramics posted above) interrupt themselves by foregrounding blatantly incongruous visual elements to assert a fiction that better resembles the situated actions I ‘performed’, for it is not the prop, performance, documentation but the interaction between site (sometimes inclusive of ‘audience’) and self that is where this work resides.



snapshots:
bear can with wind chime
headdress atop bear can 
headdress carin in wind
bear can with wind chime's rope handle
bear can swinging chime
bear can swinging chime & shadow 
as Gni Gnah Loof, near glacial remains

Jumping ahead to the work made on trail John Muir Wilderness

ok so I thought when I wrote my first blog entry a week after leaving the Wilderness --for we were to deep in it to blog from there...I  thought I'd take everyone journal style through the whole experience from  arrivak & orientation on to discussions a day hikes, then heading out onto the trail-- touring 8 days  with the wilderness rangers--portraits of them....return to Jack Ass Base camp-- runs down mountain to town that took so long--5 minutes of phoning home could cost  5 hrs of the day...then art ideas and making  stuff  in a cabin where  the electric is from a generator--5 days of sleep deprivation to make costumes props form characters narratives link it all to something of importance...Then  back into the wilderness deeper this time and carrying  all your gear food and the art  stuff--those props and costumes, cameras to document, all the stuff your back and feet  wish you'd left behind-- s you could just walk and hike and scramble...then the project, only then with context--and I still hope too do all that-- but I have work to share and the tale I outlined  and my out line for the tale  goes on a while --and a while longer before we'd get to the work so I'm going to skip way ahead... and back fill later

I have invented this character-- a Kotwa, healer--a teacher,detective and initiator of rituals and as him I am wandering on and off trail in the Big John Muir Wilderness-- I'm thinking a bit glibly about wilderess as a Mall of sorts--the Pacific Crest Trail and John Muir Trails as Corridors of Sacrifice--where within wilderness, wilderness has been replaced by a theater of itself--a theater playing to itself but actually  to us--folks wanting entertainment and achievement badges for our  khaki uniforms. Wilderness area creeping away from the wilderness act and that slippery shape shifter 'the wilderness character' that fills in the gaps between statute--

I have become a character of that character  and my name as him is Gni Gnah Loof, I am  Kotwa, of the Kotwa People ...Now, Gni Gnah Loof is walking these broad trails and he is finding all the  fields of his vision be-specked with bright  little wildflower colors...but these are not twinkling blooms  but instead the fuschia corner of a granola bar with cranberries, or the dewy silver remains of a foil lined  pack meal burned and pulverized and set  into the breeze of flood drift-- now tiny as a microchip and as common on the trail as the smart chips are in our non-wilderness homes--there are many other little colors to, some slightly withered by fire but all gleaming micro remains of food packaging, lost buttons fishing lures.

You understand that seeing this a Kotwa must make a medicine--a potion or dance, oration or blow to the head-- and to do this he must also understand the ailment--for a medicine that doesn't know it's sickness will not be let over the ill-house threshold.

The documentation of the work interrupts itself by foregrounding blatantly incongruous visual elements to assert a fiction that better resembles the situated actions I ‘performed’, for it is 

not the prop, performance, documentation but the interaction between site (inclusive of ‘audience’)

and self that is where this work resides. Further in the wilderness we ourselves are intrusions and

what we bring as contemporary people can be startlingly incongruous with the environment--I, 

we, us all our gear everything an exotic and a hybrid of questionable belonging...

Gni Gnah Loof’s sleeping pad has now been divided in two strips and cushioned in luxurious velvet, allowing him to walk the trail in comfort--but his sleeping is no longer so good.

Loof does not sleep during the day--you must not depend so much on what appears as to avoid the what is.

Above Loof's head, in the rosy glow that comes from sun passing through his tent's red walls, Gni Gnah Loof's Kotwa headress waits for his next excursion--but speaking of the Kotwa headdress now is to soon, so we return to the Corridor of Sacrifice and the thoughts and actions upon it.

When he is walking on the pad on the trail each time he reaches the end of one half of his pad he rolls out the other half ahead of himself—retrieving and rolling up the one he has just stepped from, now carrying  it with him so he can extend his cushioned trail forward. This allows him to continuously walk on a padded trail.

A Trail has its overlooks and vignettes..and there are windows in this trail, windows that look out of the wilderness and back to stores and kitchens. these are reveered windows filled with shiny colors. With each step Gni Gnah Loof bends to touch the ‘micro trash’ that be-jewels his path cushion amazed by the wonderment of variety. In truth  these are not real things they are props he has made--the rattle is not the medicine, nor the sound, nor the shaking--these things only mark  and make the healing  able to be seen, located, and with good fortune grasped--so Gni Gnah Loof has sewn these colors into the path with a love that is hungry for dried cherries or curried Shitake mushrooms wrapped in bright yellow crinkly cellophane. These are lovely delicious things adding colors and good substances to my food--and they are doing the same to my path filling it with little tastes of alien color and substances--be-speckled becomes the local environment. 

(Wilderness Rangers spend a large portion of their tours picking micro trash from trails campsites and fire pits this process yields mountains of trash over 40 lbs was collected on a single 8 day tour).

Out on the Trail Gni Gnah Loof hangs his Kotwa Banner and walks his padded trail, others move more swiftly on the trail and do not touch the little colors. Someone may stop and ask him what he is doing and he will try to tell them-- telling them in his way, hoping they will be made stronger less able to become ill -- this variety of illness leaves things covered in little colored spots--hives that require some more healing.