Roadside Attractions for Hawaii

Anna Peach, 2005, Roadside Attractions for Hawaii, golf balls recoved from the ocean, asphalt pile.

Marking Our Territory

Kids are great except when they decide to use your flower garden for snowboarding. I tried very hard to overlook the fact that the neighbor boy uses our garden for his activities…so what is a little bike riding, tree climbing, rock throwing, mud slinging, and window peeking every once in a while. Although I tried to focus on my excitement about the newly fallen snow, I couldn’t overlook the fact that with the weekend approaching and my crocus in full bloom…we were in trouble. After a full three hours of attack there were no flowers left, the tranquility nowhere to be found. The only way to fight back against an eleven year old is to use my ultimate weapon…a much… much later bedtime. I crept out into the night with my double-gloved hands and did the unthinkable: I rolled up all the snow, and I mean all of it. I made two giant snowmen. I nearly fell backwards twice while trying to lift the colossal snowballs but I didn’t care. What is a week in the hospital in the big scheme of things?

To top things off I had to swat the neighbor cat on the butt when he had my feral Hawaiian cat in a death roll on the former crocus bed, leaving my cat limping on three legs. So that is it, the line has been crossed and we are not going to be bullied anymore. So think of me what you will, but its not like there is any shortage of hills in Switzerland. My cat is still ticked after circumnavigating the globe in a Sherpa bag so watch out neighborhood, the tulips are coming and this time we are ready.

A Photographer Without Sight

I am remembering my dreams more than I used to, and with the recent move that felt more like an evacuation the dreams are carried into my days. I have been haunted by leaving Hawaii in much the same way I was haunted while I was there. Dreams often become the starting point of my art, but more so the daydreams than those from the night. Most of my recent dreams involve my former students, animals I rescued or references to my family home being lifted and moved to another place, which unfortunately happened. They are a scramble of references to home and identity with a good dose of guilt thrown in. Abandonment plays a key role almost nightly. Last night’s dream is no exception with the appearance of a friend who is a symbol of home. We stood in a stark empty white room face to face with my friend’s eyes covered with a blindfold. His hands searched my face like a bind man would, recognizing me by touch.

I have been identified like that when I return to one particular island off the coast of Ireland. A fair amount of my early inspiration for photography came from this island man that could not see, as well as my own Mother who woke to find she had lost her sight in her sleep and then months later woke to find it had returned. I remember trying to explain my photography to this islander as well as trying to explain to my Mother why I chose to be a visual artist when she lost her sight. I am not sure which was easier, explaining sight to someone who has never had it, or explaining why you choose to see because you may not always have it. What I found through conversations with this islander was that we shared a love of the same dangerous places that very few others bothered to hike to. It was desolate and windy, and chances are you would fall at least once regardless of your sight. Your leg would be caught in deep crevices that cross cut the land and each time you wondered if you would free yourself before nightfall. The experience was the same for both of us.

The last time I was in Ireland I traveled out to this place even though I had little more than one day to spent there. I needed to be there, to reconnect in some way with the stones, the cliffs, something that was still there no matter how many months I had stayed. I talked for a few moments with some of the residents, before noticing a man with two dogs walking by his side, one a new guide dog fresh from training and the other the dear guiding friend from the past now retired. I wanted to yell out, but yelling wasn’t really appropriate in this place of silence, so I simply stood there and watched him turn to face me from the bottom of the hill and nod.

My friend in the dream probably sees more than anyone I have ever met. My mind is so filled with his images that sometimes I confuse them for my own. I see them on my wall or in books or upon my desk and for I split second I think it is my experience, and in a way it is. That is why we are interested in art and creativity in the first place. So why is it that in my dream he is without the sense that guides him, and why am I the one to have presumably taken it from him, although temporarily. Maybe it serves to balance, to redirect like a lightning rod or a ground to ensure safety.

Memoirs of an Artist Relocation

It seems like I have spent most of my life trying to attatch or detatch myself from places, but I never do very well at either. It takes me a long time to be inspired by a new home base, and this time is no exception. Switzerland in all its beauty and approachability in scale should be easy. But as six months have passed and I have created very little new work, I am beginning to wonder. My belongings just arrived after four and a half months at sea and then being mislabeled in a warehouse in England, where they sat and sat for another month before they pieced it together that those were the boxes in question. As an artist you always think about those things. How would it feel to suddenly have nearly all of your lifetime of work disappear. Since I am independent of a gallery, I am the one throwing my work in a box in the storeroom rather than the gallery doing it on my behalf. I have a haphazard list of some of the people that have my work in their collections. I know which pieces are currently being shown, and which ones were destroyed in a fit of fire or composting. Composting was a reluctant, but necessary part of the last move due to my use of hemp fibre that is supposed to be illegal in Switzerland. Hemp was my new fibre love in Hawaii due to the fact that it did not mold or mildew...probably the only thing in the whole state that could claim that title. But it is the composting that I regret because several of the things that were supposed to be banned ended up clearing customs in fine shape, including the seeded works that I took to the US Department of Agriculture to have them inspected. Wish I could have brought my camera in for that one! Sitting in an overly air conditioned box in Hilo airport holding a black seeded bustier as the nervous inspector repeatedly mistyped Sweden insted of Switzerland as he searched for plant importing requirements. Probably the only day anyone has ever broke a sweat in that icy office. So this bustier is now officially dedicated to the outstanding USDA Inspectors who helped me bring these works half way around the world. May they be inspired!