maag; opaque quiet

I showed my still video at MAAG: the McMurdo Alternative Art Gathering. I joined a team of dedicated folks, together we organized and curated the MAAG events early last month. The event was very different from my jewelry sales, my role as an artist was behind the scenes.
…………………….

As encompassing as the silence can be out on the sea ice or in the deep field, social silence here at McMurdo is non-existent. 1000 people live on station. 2 to 4 people share a room. I have three lovely roommates, who all work different shifts. The station runs 24 hours and day and each science support employee works 60 hours a week. In my room, there is not one hour of the day in which we can talk above a whisper: It is a 24-hour sleep space.

And gossip howls like the wind. Work and personal life is indistinguishable. All space is public, someone is always watching and thus everyone can know. Quiet is rare.

..........................

I also created an interactive space, titled:

opaque quiet.



In the mechanic equipment shop of the Science Support Center, our gallery, I constructed an 8’ L x 8’ W x 10’ H room with visqueen plastic. The space became a sanctuary of silence amidst the social sea of the MAAG opening. The entry had a rounded arch and was low so those who entered had to bow their heads. A small visqueen sign hung just above the entry. It read: “This is a silent space. If desired you are invited to communicate non-verbally”. A sign to the right read: “Please Remove your shoes”.




Inside two hanging globe lights hovered over two army cots. Each sat one inch from the floor. On a wood block at the far end of the room rested a stack of manila cards and ballpoint pens.



The silent sanctuary was a dedicated space observable to all but from within you were required not to react. Intimate words were shared without rumors whispering them into the night.



Upon exiting the sanctuary, a sign to the left sat above a wooden block and said: Please place your written conversations here.



…………………

To think, next year I want to come back.
To the silence, to the closter phobia, to the vastness,
To the ice.

penguins!!

Penguins make me sooo happy.



And today, I definitely wasn't the only happy one!

The weather here this austral summer has been really special. The channel, broken out by the icebreakers, has become a penguin highway. As the temperature increased and the air began to blow the quick ice in the bay out to the liquid ocean a group of over 100 ADELE PENGUINS arrived just off Hut Point near the ice pier!

Hundreds of people pilgrimaged out to Scott's Hut (Hut Point) to see all these cute squabbling fellows.



Oh, they are so animated and curious. Waddling about, investigating all of their admirers.





They came within 5 feet of me when I sat still. And squawked, picking up rocks and bringing them back to their colony. I sat at the point for hours and feel that I glowed with their carefree-ness for days.



I am one of the luckiest people alive.

icestock 2006

On New Years Eve day, McMurdo parties with the Annual Icestock, an all day outdoor music festival with a town wide chilli contest!



This year the event, of course, was a total hit! I went out to see Toothless Sean, a folksy rockstar. *grin*



We danced our hearts out, played games (including freesbe, and this old school hammer game, which of course I cannot name!).



And then, when the chill got to my bones I stopped by Sawbucks for a free coffee drink spiked with my choice of whiskey! I take after my grandpa because my do I like whiskey on a cold summer afternoon.

winter wonderland

i recently became a trained leader for the mcmurdo station outing
club, and on christmas eve we took our first outing club trip! we
held the trip out at snow mound city, a site out on the sea ice shelf
located on 40 meters of snow, suspended above 80 meters of ocean.



in this first photo was taken from the top of the castle rock loop trail. this steep steep slop is called the "kiwi ski hill" and leads down to snow mound city. the little black spots out in the distance are two huts that mark our camping
spot. i took a piston bully (basically a mini tracked truck) with all
of our group gear and met the campers who came on foot. the weather
was absolutely beautiful, with afternoon temperatures in the mid 20's
and absolutely no wind.



snow mound city is also the training grounds for our "happy camper
school" so in many ways in resembles stumbling upon an ancient site
where primitive antarctians lived! ironically, most of the "primitive
sites" were built within the past month but with harsh winds the snow
block walls get blown away.



the four leaders, which included my
friends matt, erin, richard and i all spent the first hour taking
photos and playing in the snow. i have found the doing head stands in
the snow has to be one of my favorite snow activities.



after all the campers congregated, we checked in with mcmurdo's
firehouse via VMF radios to inform town that we were all accounted
for.



then, we made tea and settled in to our sleeping quarters. i
made a nest in a quinsy (basically a snow formed igloo) shaped like a
large turtle. with looming mt erebus in the background and petrified
snow letters that spelled out "hi mom" and "hi dad" (all of which are
illustrated in the second to last photo)..i thought this was the
perfect place to spend xmas eve and christmas morning!



no need to dream about a white wonderland... *grin* i was in one!

it was a fabulous and magical night. revealing the silence possible
in the world, *grin* and the vast expanse that we rarely experience.

heavy shop holiday party

if there is one thing folks at mcmurdo know how to do, *grin* it's throw a party. the parties here are, without question, some of the best!

these lovely photos are from our holiday party held over at the VMF-vehicle maintanence facility; basically we partied down in our autoshop! leave it to ice folks to make a party in the most unexpected places!



our christmas choir sang for a few hours and then the party turned to swing dancing! even the most terrible dancers hit the floor-some quite literally.



each department was required to build chirstmas decorations. the most impressive was the leg lamp from "the christmas story". unfortunately, i forgot to take a photo.

however, i did get some shots with santa on the antarctic skidoo! i am accompanied by my roommates: elizabeth and krista, and santa is an electrician!



my department, ATO-antarctic terminal operations-all posed for a photo too! most of the shuttlies are missing, but these are many of the faces i see every day!

stellar axis

on the solstice i participated in the first ever conceptual art performance piece to be funded by the NSF.



created by Lita Albequerque, an artist based out of LA, this work maps the constellations locatated above this particular location, nearly at the bottom of the earth.

lita worked with an astronomer and a GPS cordinating system to plot 99 fiberglass cobalt blue balls on the sea ice so that they mirror the brightest 99 stars in the southern hemisphere. lita was interested in visually representing the light emitted from these stars in on the longest and brightest day of the year.



then, i drove IVAN the Terra Bus, out to her sight with 58 people. together, coordinated with helocopter pilots and a cinematographer, we walked to create a moving spiral within these ploted stars.







here at mcmurdo, we commonly refered to lita's project as "the blue balls", which made me one of the blue ball handlers.

happy camper

last night i spent my first evening sleeping on snow in snow.
i went to happy camper!



happy camper is an over night school that teaches the basic in skills needed to survive out during harsh polar storms.

we learned how to read the weather, put up scott tents, which are designed based on the traditional tents used by first antarctic explorers...



create strudy anchors for glacier/mountaineering tents,



and build a cozy little camp compound (a phrase. i ironically adapted from africa). i most enjoyed building the wind walls for our compound. using hand saws, we cut 4 feet down into the packed snow and pulled up perfectly square blocks.



then, with banana sleds, we transported the blocks to build a four foot wall that "blocked the harsh southernly winds that were starting to make it's way to our camp".



*grin* really, the night was calm and the storm slow--we just pretended for the sake of practice that we had harsh winds. my friend matt (one of the co-instructors) even went so far as to act like the wind, picking up things that we carelessly set down and stealing them for the night.



lastly, we learned how to build quinzy's: basically bonified snow forts. the experience was collaborative...and using the right techniques they become very strong!! and, to my surprize, they were warm. i slept all night without a peep.

the most noteworthy skill i learned in happy camper is to be physically proactive. to anticipate my bodily needs.

in order to prevent hypothermia, all people in the field have to consider their physical needs first and always think ahead. personally, i think most acedemic's are physically hypothermic. *laughter* but that is another story!



somehow all of this seems crucial to my art. that is beautiful and serene.

thanksgivings

after sharing my dozens of antarctic landscapes, i thought it was time to show you the mcmurdo from the inside.



on thanksgiving day, which we celebrated on saturday, november 25, my co-workers and i all dressed up in our nicest clothes ate a huge thanksgiving feast in the galley. it's a phenominon not to see folks in carharts. i think we look pretty snazzy!

later that evening, my supervisor, kris (the front and center in the previous photo) threw me a wee little birthday party gathering. here are a bunch of us drinking mojito's (ghetto style).





our partying then spread over to the coffee house where we watched live folk music and drank wine. a spendid night for all in company!

be-celebration

my birthday was one of my best days yet!!



(although i have an intuitive feeling that many more will come!)

our shuttles crew scheduled a trip out to CAPE EVANS, one of the three original antarctic explorer huts.



a group of 17 went, all whom i love dearly and were in jovial spirits. above is a group shot we took out at the hut in front of the barnes glacier.

below, a small group loaded into the delta for our three hour drive! look at our smiles, giddy as can be.



our giddyness got giddyer. we saw our first adele penguin waddling accross the barren expanse. we stopped to take photos, curiously it waddled our way to check us out. penguins are such peculiur fellows!



when we finally arrived at the hut, we stripped down from our warm coats to enjoy the sunshine.



viewing the interior of the hut was a truely a amazing experience.

cape evans is the largest (15'x 8') of the first antarctic explorer cabins. built in 1910, the nearly 100 year old hut is now a historic site restored to it's orignal state. i loved the kitchen table, a warm gathering space in this harsh and desolate environment.





to the right of the kitchen table, bottles of preserved food line the walls.
the heinz ketchup bottle being the most stunning! it's hard to believe that it's nearly 100 years old.



cape evans was built in tera nova bay during british explorer, robert falcon scott's, second expedition to antarctica. at one point 25 men slept here, including shackleton. this is shackleton's bed.



in addition to thier rations, the explores subsisted on blubber from seals, and often ate penguins. this dead peguin still remains, totally frozen (NOT stuffed).



one of my most poinant memories is the pungent smell of these rooms. the room below contains piles and piles of seal blubber, gooy, frozen and seeping.



while i walked around inside i heard giggling and screams from the snow outside. play ensued!! besides tacking each other, and snow shovel rides, we also made snow angels and human pyramids!



i particularly enjoyed doing cartwheels with my 10 lb bunny boots out in front of the barnes glacier!



and of course, on the way home, our vehicle got SOOO stuck--almost 15 times!. the warm weather melted the snow, making driving in our 44,ooo lb delta nearly impossible. with shovels, and large wooden boards we dug out the delta again and again.



marty and andrea, remedied our spirts (which were actually still jovial), and late night--midnight--weariness. our emergency survial bags were pulled open to create a moveable water boiling station that could follow the delta as proceeded from stuck to more stuck. once the water boiled, we all enjoyed hot coco made with melted ocean ice!



after hours of digging we got home just before 2am, still sunny and shinning outside with thanksgiving day to look forward to.