PLAND is launched! Off-the-Grid and on the web.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 22, 2010

Contact: Erin Elder pland.info@gmail.com

NEW INITIATIVE PROCLAIMS:

PRACTICE LIBERATING ART THROUGH NECESSARY DISLOCATION!

www.itspland.org

TAOS, NEW MEXICO - Announcing the formal launch of PLAND, an off-the-grid residency program that supports the development of experimental and research-based projects in the context of the Taos mesa. PLAND was conceived of and founded in July 2009, when creative trio Erin Elder, Nina Elder, and Nancy Zastudil banded together to acquire a small parcel of land near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Rio Grande Gorge. The arid plot is currently void of amenities such as water and electricity, with terrain defined by sage brush, chamisa, and breath-taking vistas of open sky. The region is home to alternative communities including the Taos Pueblo, several Earthship developments, and a scattering of off-the-grid homesteaders. 



The three founders describe PLAND as:



“A program that focuses on open-ended projects that facilitate collaboration, experimentation, and hyper-local engagement. We do not hold expectations about prescribed outcomes. We privilege process over product. We believe artists can do amazing things when supported and encouraged in new contexts. We believe that no context exists like that of the Taos mesa.



We find our inspiration in a legacy of pioneers, entrepenuers, homesteaders, artists, and other counterculturalists who – through both radical and mundane activities – reclaim and reframe a land-based notion of the American Dream.”



During Summer 2010, PLAND will host a motley crew of thinkers and doers in a series of work parties, idea-testing workshops, and inaugural project-based residencies in order to transform the land into a more inhabitable outpost while challenging artists to create, experiment, and produce their own work within this unique context. These activities are funded in part by The Idea Fund and supported by the hard work of students at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.



For more information visit www.itspland.org

ABOUT THE FOUNDERS

Erin Elder is an independent curator, writer, and teacher interested in collaboration, sense of place, and expanded notions of culture. Her research has focused on Drop City, the first of the ‘60s era artist-built communes and continues to do research and write on the countercultural activities of the American Southwest. She has produced projects with a variety of institutions including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Creative Time, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver. She currently teaches experimental art practices at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Erin holds dual self-designed BAs from Prescott College and an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts. She enjoys hiking, hot springs, and building forts. She has recently learned the art of making wine from scratch.


Nina Elder is an artist who examines the visual evidence of post-industrial culture, and its distinctive cycles of production, consumption, and waste. Her work is concerned with banality and the proliferation of commonplace objects. She scrutinizes the aesthetic mitigation that often camouflages sites of production, use, and disposal. Her artistic inquiry responds to the friction between humanity, the natural world, and industrial proliferation. Nina's research is executed through hiking in the Rocky Mountains, exploring factories, mines, and dumps, reading Western novels, and while driving down desolate highways. In 2009 Nina received her MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and she holds a BFA in Painting from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. She has exhibited across the nation, including California, New Mexico, New York, and South Dakota. 



Nancy Zastudil is an independent curator and freelance writer whose research focuses on collective art practices that operate in the service of revolution and social progress. She held the position of Associate Director of the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts from Fall 2007 - Spring 2010; has collaboratively curated exhibitions in numerous cities including Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston; and is co-founder of Slab, an exhibition method that collaboratively facilitates artists' projects and events. She is managing editor of the forthcoming art journal 127 Prince; is co-editor of On the Banks of Bayou City: The Center for Land Use Interpretation in Houston (March 2009); and her interviews and reviews have been published in Proximity Magazine, spot, …might be good, and Curating Now. Nancy holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing from The Ohio State University and an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts. She is a WWOOFer, a barefoot-running marathon enthusiast, and lover of cowboys.

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NORAD, our biggest local oddity

Since moving to Colorado Springs, I've become (re)enchanted with some of the local oddities. We have a fake cave dwelling, Santa's Workshop (a north pole-themed amusement park), a castle-like shrine to Will Rogers, a cog railway that takes tourists to the top of Pikes Peak where a donut shop and other curios await. There are thousands of attractions within a day's drive of Colorado Springs and countless festivals (like the annual Coffin Race in Manitou Springs or the famed Fruitcake Toss) to entertain and amaze. Getting its start as a resort town, Colorado Springs has always thrived on tourism. We have one of the only 5 star hotels in the state, one of the best zoos in the country, and ready access to astounding parks, views, mountain drives, waterfalls, historic towns, and much more.

One of the weirder (yet nearly invisible) oddities in Colorado Springs is NORAD, which is essentially a military base inside of Cheyenne Mountain. North American Aerospace Defense Command was built in the 1960s during the height of the Cold War to protect the Arctic from attack. It has since been repurposed to fight the drug wars and the war on terror, but was decommissioned as a military base in 2006.

Although it is supposedly unused today, it still boasts a crown of blinking red lights atop Cheyenne Mountain, creating an ever-present constellation in the night sky. If you live in this town, you've wondered about NORAD at one moment or another. Its scale is hard to determine and public access is forbidden. The power of NORAD may have something to do with satellites and lasers, but it is also empowered by collective imagination. As children who grew up at the foot of NORAD, we used to speculate what it was like inside and what sorts of activities went on therein. I imagined that NORAD filled up the entire underside of Cheyenne Mountain, that cities on giant springs housed millions of radars and maps and men who never saw the light of day. At one point I feared that NORAD could read my mind, that it was tracking my thoughts or watching me through the light fixtures.

One of my new favorite things about Colorado Springs is a program on Radio Colorado College called The Big Something. I've started receiving their daily email posts because they include free songs, local announcements, public interest stories, newsy tidbits and more. Its another local oddity that makes me proud to live here.

This week The Big Something notified readers that Popular Science Magazine has recently made their entire 137-year archive available online and although the collection is not yet searchable, the editors of TBS found an illustrated article about NORAD just before construction was completed in 1967. I suggest you read the article yourself as it discusses the massive bomb-shelter still housed inside our "lumpy" mountain. You still can't pass through its 43-ton steel doors, but this article will give you entry into one of our nation's strangest Cold War oddities and the logic behind the continent's "most elaborate and important" defense installation. Read it here

I like to imagine a new future for decommissioned NORAD. What might it become? With numerous military bases being repurposed as parks, artist residency centers, historic landmarks, and more, I wonder what can be done with one of the world's largest and most outdated bunkers? Perhaps NORAD -- the inter-mountain luxury hotel, the artist commune, the underground farm, the world's largest movie theater, the greatest planetarium ever -- will become another favorite local oddity. Even though NORAD is now defunct, this village inside a mountain still conjures the imagination.

Fire Shelter

I came to the woods of Caldera with the first month of 2010 reaching out, like a blanket of untouched snow, before me. I had every intention of beginning a book project about the Anonymous Artists of America and/or some of the other topics discussed on Red Legacy. I brought a suitcase of books and a few changes of clothes. I stocked up on wine and stoked a fire in my cozy A-frame and let the swirlings of my mind settle, scatter, ignite, glimmer, rest. I wandered through the burnt up forests and through weeks of unscripted time.

I felt adrift, without a shred of interest in research, much less that which focused on goings on of other places and other times. In my confusion, I revisited one of my favorite texts – it wasn’t one that I brought in my suitcase, rather it’s one of those that I keep bookmarked online and refer to with frequency. Hakim Bey, an American anarchist philosopher wrote The Temporary Autonomous Zone in 1985 and ascribed it an anti-copyright status alongside the note: “May be freely pirated & quoted-- the author & publisher, however, would like to be informed…”*The Temporary Autonomous Zone is not an especially well-written text but influenced the Cacophony Society, the makers of Burning Man, and many music and social theorists. Despite its intermittently vague and flamboyant language, it gives me direction too.

The Temporary Autonomous Zone is a potent but rather abstract concept; it is a phenomenon that challenges dominant culture and may be a model for thinking about daily freedom. Bey does not define the Temporary Autonomous Zone, or the TAZ, as he refers to it; rather, he talks circles around the TAZ, assigning characteristics and giving examples of moments that might somehow inform a larger understanding of what he describes as “a suggestion or a poetic fancy.”

Bey talks about the TAZ as a tactic to be used against the State and its all-encompassing spectacle. He also describes the TAZ as being invisible, something that arises spontaneously and then dissolves to reform itself elsewhere, in order to maintain true freedom. The TAZ is constantly happening: everywhere, always, if not forever. Yet it is imperative that we keep intentionally carving out autonomous spaces – cracks in an otherwise planned development – and to do this through acts of self-determination, no matter how small. These actions of are what move culture forward and are the basis for both personal and widespread liberty. This is the revolution of everyday life.

Bey compares the TAZ to pirate crews and dinner parties, rock festivals and spiritual awakenings. He relays the incredible story of the artist Gabriele D’Annunzio who, after WWII, captured the Yugoslavian city of Fiume (see earlier post on Pirate Utopias) and created an artists state. He designated Fiume as an independent nation with music as the highest order. For 18 months – until the money ran out and the Italian army lobbed a few grenades -- he read poetry from the balconies every morning and threw parties complete with fireworks every night. It’s really quite amazing that Fiume stayed soveriegn as long as it did but the longevity of its independence is not the point. For Bey and for me, the tale of the independent artists state is about a sense of possibility that comes from knowing and creating momentary freedom.

I first came across this text a few years ago and the notion of the Temporary Autonomous Zone has since shaped nearly everything I do.

Caldera has been a provocative place to consider the TAZ, for in winter it is wild and empty and the days stretch on without expectations. There, amidst the devastated forests and the wilderness of my mind, the TAZ dashed my original plan to read and write books, forcing a spontaneous reorientation to my environment and to what is possible. The TAZ took on a different dimension entirely and manifested (temporarily) in the form of Fire Shelter.

Fire Shelter is a place I made in the forest. Fire Shelter is something to which I surrendered. It has been a source of investigation, a muse, a practice, and an object. I have built something that will not last long with only my hands and intuition and with materials found along the way.

What is Fire Shelter? Is it a shelter from fire? for fire? of fire? with fire? It’s certainly not a place to live, but it may be a place to weather a storm. It is something to be discovered. It is something that deteriorates. It is somewhat of a secret. It could easily be overlooked or forgotten. It’s a pile of sticks and rock. It’s a way to pass the time. It’s more than a shelter; it’s a shrine.

Just a few years ago 900,000 acres of forest near Caldera burnt down in the B&B fire. Now the forest is a skeleton, a graveyard of corpses. The blackness of this forest is startling, terrifying, horrible. We all know the enlivening process of fire -- that with fire comes new life. But what strikes me about these forests is the present nature of these trees – they are dead but upright, not yet logs or fuel. These trees are stuck in a sort of purgatory, waiting to fall. They have been burnt into irreversible death, yet they must wait for the scars of their desecration to become useful. I want to push these trees down. I want to burn them up more. I want to light a match and with it, all of the blackness and regret that this forest harkens. I want to stop this waiting and move towards new growth, new life. But this is the forest; this is the way that it is, with all its ghosts and memories and terrible blackness.

And so this fort is about the wreckage of fire. It is built from the very waste and want of burning. It is about mistakes, about nature, about the precision of control that differentiates the forest fire from the innards of my wood-burning stove. It is about time and healing and darkness and soot. It is about the unguided act of creation that results from sheer desire.

As a teacher, a writer, a curator, a woman, Fire Shelter is a defiance of my own expectations and also a test of my basic abilities. Can I meet my own needs while evading the assumed plan of action? Can I – through the act of building a fort in the woods – honor the slow, painful, natural, waiting progression of things while still encouraging my life forward? And how can this manifestation of my considerations -- that are physical, philosophical, evolving and hopeful -- eventually become a home for someone else’s dreaming? Finally, can I let my creation disintegrate slowly and quietly, deep in a forest far far away?

Fire Shelter may be a sort of Temporary Autonomous Zone. For me, it was that and much more. As long as it stands and perhaps thereafter, I'd like to think of Fire Shelter as a moment or space in which unscripted things can happen and in which the convergence of human self-determination and natural order might find a fleeting balance.

Bring your boots and hats, your water and a map. Are you ready for a journey into the woods?

*Find the TAZ here: http://www.hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html

Three Words to Live By

I've just returned from a gift of a place. CALDERA.

Caldera is 90+ acres of incredible forests and lakes in Central Oregon. During the summer it is a camp for under-served youth; in the winter months, the grounds are given over to a set of artists in residence. The facilities are wonderful and the landscape is ... well, breath-taking.

A few years ago, the B&B fire burned down 900,000 acres of forest and the damage from that mighty fire is still remarkably visible. In fact, it's a bit of a miracle that Caldera survived at all.

Caldera is built along the edge of Blue Lake, a steep 300-foot deep lake and is the only thing that came between the fire and the camp.

A caldera is "a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption." I love this description because, to be there is both an eruption and a settling. It is a surrender to the natural order of things.

Artists are invited to Caldera for month-long residencies during which they/we live in A-frame cabins overlooking a creek. We are given free reign over our time and all of that open space to explore. We are not expected to pay or work or donate anything to the place. There is a real understanding that artists make significant contributions to the world and that their creative processes must be supported and unhinged. It's rather extraordinary to consider this concept. It's entirely generous and forward-thinking, important and true.

The story behind Caldera is sweet and it starts with Dan Wieden, of the famous Portland-based advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy. W+K is the mastermind behind loads of marketing genius but are best known for their work with Nike. JUST DO IT. I heard this and was dumb-struck. Although I've grown up with Nike and seen the ads a zillion times, I never really thought about that phrase coming from somewhere, someone, and that millions of dollars were rewarded for its articulation in the marketplace. JUST DO IT... it seems so plain and simple, so absolutely elemental. Certainly this is a phrase that courses through the minds of every human and is the very instinct that drives evolution and culture forward. How odd that someone could market these three words. It's almost like marketing breath or water.

As skeptical as I can be about marketing, etc. I am in awe of this phrase and very grateful to those who coined it. It's interesting to think that three words can make a person rich and that the fruit of those three words can support an admirable non-profit that advocates for youth and for art. The more I considered these words (while working in my A-frame or circling Blue Lake), the more I heard their incredible power. There were moments of uncertainty -- when I couldn't decide how to spend my unscripted time or if I should veer off the beaten path when "JUST DO IT" would rumble into my head. Not only did the words speak to me as a sort of cheer or mantra, but I began to see the brilliance of the phrase as a marketing scheme. I'd like to think that Dan Wieden has had moments like I have. Even though he's a millionaire now, he's probably struggled through creative process and turned to nature in his times of confusion. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it was in a nature-filled moment, in a flash of uncertainty, that his best-seller came to mind. Isn't this where the best and brightest ideas are born? From our collision between our raw, helpless human nature and the desire to really make the most of ourselves?

I am so grateful for Caldera. The gift of time and space is unlike anything else. And while that gift can be offered by other people, it requires a certain surrender to allow the time and space to do its magic. So often JUST DO IT meant, just do nothing. I had to own my experience; I had to really live it. And so the place, the gift, the forest and the phrase all came together in a fascinating month that I will never ever forget.

Learn more about Caldera here: www.calderaarts.org

Wishing on a Starr

One of my favorite places in Colorado Springs may disappear in the coming months. For decades, I and thousands of others have flocked to Starr Kempf's house on the edge of Cheyenne Canyon to be wooed by the mystical kinetic sculptures that dominate his yard. While the sculptures are well beloved, they've been the subject of an on-going legal battle. According to grandson, Joshua Kempf, the sculptures will soon be removed and the house will be sold.

Starr Kempf was born in 1917 to a family of backsmiths and carpenters near a Menonite community in Ohio. He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, served in the Air Force during WWII, then settled in Colorado Springs with his German-born wife Hedwig. He built a home and foundry on a small plot of land near the historic Broadmoor Hotel, nestled beneath Cheyenne Mountain. Building a career on small bronzes and paintings, Starr eventually graduated to large wind-powered sculptures called Monumentals. He committed suicide in 1995 at age 78.

The thing that I've always loved about Starr Kempf's house is that, wrapped in mystery and echoing silence, it somehow illustrates the darkness, the talent, the private life of this nationally-renown artist. It is the kind of place that commands quiet respect and whispered awe. I've been to the house several dozen times and until yesterday, never seen anyone there.

When a friend visited from San Francisco this weekend, I took her (as I take all my special dates, adventurous friends and out-of-town guests) to see Starr Kemp's house. I was immediately horrified to witness two of the Monumentals lying on the ground. We saw a truck and heard noise from the garage and decided to boldly inquire. We met Joshua Kempf, Starr's grandson, who appeared to be cleaning out the studio garage and were immediately won over by his warm smile, lilting British accent, and openness to our query. While he was rather secretive about the plans for the property and the art work, he confirmed that the sculptures are indeed being dismantled and moved; the house is for sale.

Admirers of Starr Kempf -- those that know the story and love the art -- have waited with baited breath for over 10 years to see what will become of his contested legacy. Soon after his suicide, Starr's daughter made steps towards turning his home into a museum. Disagreements with the neighbors turned into multi-million dollar lawsuits and infighting between the family. The daughter has now sued both of her siblings and her nephew several times over and has reportedly connived Hedwig (who suffered from dimentia) into signing over the rights to his giant sculptures. Evolutions of the scandalous tale is often reported in the local news; its regionally known, and yet the City of Colorado Springs has been surprisingly passive in helping settle the dispute. The family made the City a deal some years back, hoping to find a more neutral venue for the sculptures, but it was turned down; in fact, the City has never adequately celebrated the career and artistic brilliance of Starr Kampf and owns only one of his sculptures (which was incidentally a gift.)

Some years ago, when I lived in Albuquerque and made frequent trips to Santa Fe by way of Interstate-25, I noticed a few Starr Kempf sculptures on the edge of a deserted parking lot. Near Algodones (the middle of nowhere), at the largely defunct and sprawling Traditions: A Festival Market (a failed factory outlet turned tourist "Indian" market) there they stood! The whimsical sculptures of my childhood were exiled to a culturally bankrupt strip mall! On my last trip past Traditions, I noticed that the Kempfs had been removed. Now as grandson Joshua packs up and shuts down the Cheyenne Canyon estate, the legacy of Starr Kempf seems particularly volatile.

In this town of military bases and mega-churches, Starr Kempf's house has been a respite of artistic inspiration and hometown pride. I don't understand how a family drama could lead to potentially devastating cultural loss. Why has the City been so passive? Why have no local patrons or foundations come to the rescue? What will happen now? Will Starr Kempf become part of the legion of forgotten artists? Hearing more about the legal battles from Joshua yesterday, I was reminded how little the law supports art, that zoning and liens and permits are not contrived to make things happen. It's sad.

When I asked Joshua what he'd like to see happen with the Monumentals, his response actually gave me hope. "I'd like to see them as the basis for a large sculpture park," he said with a flash in his eyes, "I can't tell you what we're up to, but come October or November you'll know!" I guess we'll just have to wait and hope and see and enjoy Starr Kempf's house before it completely dissolves.

Learn more about Starr Kempf and the ensuing battle about his legacy here.

This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land!

On July 29, my sister, Nina, Nancy Zastudil (in absentia) and I became co-owners of a small parcel of land! Our dear friend Steve McFarland (see earlier posts about Project:Unknown) encouraged us to attend a land auction during which arid parcels leftover from a World's Fair land scheme were being sold.  Our team of 8 worked hard for days deciphering maps, listings, GPS, and conflicting information to prepare for the two-day long auction.  It was a stressful but exciting few days, at the end of which our team walked away with neighboring plots and smiles all around.

40-some miles from Taos near the village of Tres Piedras sits our own little patch of sage brush and chamisa.  There is not water or electricity.  The road is rough, but not long.  Powerlines loom nearby and the highway is slightly audible.  From our sloping tierra are views of the Sangre de Christos, junked cars, giant sky, a new-ish yurt and a beautiful in-progress dome home.  Most people would think this land a waste of money but for us it presents great possibility.  

It will be a challenge to work together to sketch a plan for the land.  The harsh environs, our lack of funds, the tight-knit community of locals, and the regional vernacular (hand-hewn homes built from cast-off materials) present all kinds of hurdles for the development of our own place.  But if I can speak for our little team of land owners, this acquisition is not about ease or luxury, it's about the process of figuring it out and figuring it out together.  Stay tuned....!