Project 1
For this weeks project I was assigned an ephemeral/site project. It was surrounded by the ideas of Andy Goldsworthy’s work. Seeing as I am in Tucson, Arizona for now and have been in Arizona for the majority of my life, I found it appropriate to select a desert location. When I was walking around one day I found this little gorge/wash type thing that was wedged in between different building developments. I suppose you could say it’s an Arizona alleyway. When I finally made it down the steep slope into the gorge I noticed how much trash there was down there. Something of particular interest to me was this weird metal box that was open on one end and had little holes all over one side.
I circled the box and wondered how long it had been there. It didn’t really have any rust or anything on it so it can’t have been too long. However I decided that this would be my point of interest for this project. It reminded me of some wild animals shelter—or better yet, home. And I decided that even if it wasn’t being used for such a purpose that I should make it look more inviting and just maybe it’d be used for one. So I began to gather dead and dried branches from the area and measured them up to the box and started breaking them down to the right size.
After a little while a woman in the house at the top of the gorge became interested in what I was doing. I already was worried I was going to get yelled at for being there. She seemed irritated at first and wanted to know what I was doing. She apparently thought I was dumping trash there because it wound up that that box was an air conditioning cover that had fallen off the house next door a few days ago when workers were working on it. She told me that they knocked it down and just left it there. She seemed very mad about it. But she was okay with me being down there as long as I wasn’t dumping trash. I did tell her what I was doing and she looked at me like I was crazy. She asked me to pick up the plastic bag that was lying on the ground and said that of course I would and I thanked her.
I covered the box with the sticks and carried over these dried flower blossoms by the handful and put them inside of the box to serve as a cushion for the bottom of the inside of the box. As the sun was setting I finished my piece. I was dirty and had cactus thorns in my hands and shirt. But, my work was not done I had to quickly take photographs before it was too dark and before I possibly had an encounter with some form of wildlife. I assume that the woman who owns the house will call the company of the workers who were there to make them come and pick up the box. So I don’t really know how long it will stay there. If they never come to get it, I’m sure that the weather will knock the sticks down and blow the flowers away. Maybe I will check on it every other day to see what’s happening to it.
