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7 & 1/2 Acres |
2002-11-15 - 10:29 p.m. I am crazy. This might be alright and all but it's not even an eccentric or endearing kind of crazy--it's a business card kind of crazy and it hit me as I neared highway 49 driving home. This is what I did--Frances and I finished a tree job which we had started yesterday. It was a good job and went well and smooth though we were both sore and had jelly arms from so many rain days off. The folks who we were working for were very nice and we both liked them. Kevin is a landscape architect and we asked him about this and he showed us his portfolio and we got him to confess what some of these jobs ran---$80.000. $200,000 and this one at $400,000.00. It was crazy. Just these huge houses with huge yards and really, though it was nice, the landscaping wasn't anything too spectacular. But we were floored--now this guy, I don't know what he's bringing home but he was good, modest and not overdone, the house, the cars, the yard. But, we also got to talking and certain local tree folks' names came up and this was all I needed to set my gears in motion. I spent the better portion of my 45 minute drive home envisioning an ad in the fucking yellow pages. I wasn't even creative with it, I'd just think over and over again, Limbs Tree service, quality tree service at an affordable price... or some variant of such. I pictured my business card and the list of services provided...pruning, cabling, fertilizing, removal... pruning, cabling, fertilizing, removal, Mulch,... I've got a big truck which suits my needs fine but I have been thinking about another truck. Thoughts of this other truck have provided me with hours and hours of musement these past few days (weeks?). Why, I could even have a trailer and so forth. I won't go on to actually name all the other things that I have so carefully and seriously mulled over to go in this truck or on this trailer (a low ground pressure track loader with a chipper attatchment, a new helment, an additional work rope, more carabiners, some slings, a backpack root feeder, a winch, an ankle ascender, new boots, chainsaw pants--not the chaps kind, I've got those). Lord, I can be boring. I got that drawing done. I haven't thought about it too much, though I did go in and install it at the museum/gallery. The folks at this place seem very pleased and it must mean something that they'd even ask/trust me to do a site specific piece (and last minute like so there would be no turning back for nobody). But these things, I don't think about much. Sometimes I tell myself that this stuff--this art stuff, it puts me in the clouds. It's not real, not necessary (though I am usually too smart to actually verbalize this). I say to myself that my other work, my tree work keeps me down to earth, grounded. It's necessary and it links me to a world that's far from the pomp of museums and galleries, and artists and designers and architects and Dwell and ArtForum (I subscribe to these two magazines). It's about people working with their hands and in a long tradition closely aligned with farming and those who have worked with the earth. I am often confused. I've got an ad to plan and mull over and over. This keeps me grounded. In the most recent ArtForum is a low down on Rachel Harrison, whose work (I have not seen in person) seems really great. I could go see it in person--I've been offered keys to a place to stay anytime in the big Northern city, but again, and not meaning to be repetitive here, I don't think much about such things. Soon I will be driving to Chicago and I was kind of thinking about not doing anything, not seeing anything, just doing the task at hand which is sending me there and then just coming straight home again. There's something wrong with me. I am dead set committed to as much fantasy as I can mull over in a day. I sure can be boring.
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