Where to go....

Where to go, Where to go, where to go, Where to go????

As I sit here in the quiet of the night, embarking upon my bimonthly all nighter, having just checked in to Zblog after a lapse - due to report writing overload - The question in my head is a resounding:  WHERE TO GO?  where do I start - and man, it hits me strong - this is the question living in this "post" spread - alive for me in its potential inception, and alive for me today in new and perhaps deeper ways.

click for larger view

During our time at UCSB, Cec and I explored an unusual type of art class together - 4D - a visual performance class - intended to add the element of time to the visual landscape of sculpture, image, etc..  In that class, for our ending project, I created a painting which then fractalled into 20+ postcards which I individually responded to and sent in response to responders of a question I posed to the other 4D participants of that semester... Where would you go???  (and why?)

remaining postcard piece XXII
awaiting its flight through 'post'

At the time, this question was living in me to the core as I pondered the composition of a journey around the world which my parents were gifting to me as a graduation present at the end of that school year - must have been Spring '97 then...

The participants answer papers, which were scrawled upon in numerous levels of thought and neatness, were profoundly impacting on my own decision making process toward planning an itinerary for the coming year.

I remember professor Kip's, who preferred to give weight to who he would go with, rather than where they would go.  And Ceci's, which I believe I returned her one day many years later - for reference - or at least we talked about it - (my memory of essence, vs. particulars is at play in all these recollections) - hers was about being in a place that had been shared with her through another's memory experiences so strongly, they imprinted on her.  And then my friend Michelle (with whom I bonded in Hermann Hesse class as well as 4D) - hers cemented our relationship when she sighted India, to meditate (something I knew I intended to do along my travels - and did / do!)  And another friends - who when I wrote back, I told him He and Michelle and I should take a long road trip together - or go deep sea snorkeling... he chose two places and they were both related to his family's ancestry.

There were other influential and not so -  one thing funny, the one postcard I wrote back with an air of indignance (vs. gratitude and openness which the rest were replied to with) - was a young man who wrote 5 cities and 5 words which were the reason he wanted to go to those places - I complained he had reduced those places to stereotypes - anyhow, I'm pretty sure I visited every one of those cities...I remember on his list were Paris, Amsterdam, Agra, Sydney...where else?  I don't think i visited via his suggestions, but it's funny to think back now and realize that.   

I remember hand delivering each postcard too (because I was too late to mail them in time for the final) - most people lived in Isla Vista - and I remember sitting on the entry way rug at Kip's end of year party trying to piece together the postcard painting - unfortunately only a handful of the people who had come remembered to bring their cards (per my written request on their notes).  Somewhere in my files of slides, there must be an image of that effort...somewhere!

Enough - Basta!

-J.