This Past October

I left my native Massachusetts for a section hike of the Appalachian Trail traveling by foot over 550 miles from Bear Mountain, NY to Waynesboro, VA. I went on this endeavor to “find myself”; to escape life and recover from depression. What I observed was a prevailing force of good will towards others. Trail Magic, hitched rides, money; all were handed out to those of us on the Trail for lengthy periods of time. In the “real world” I had lost my faith in sincerity of the social construct; on the trail I was reminded time and time again that community engagement and credence toward others still exists.

The drive to make, do, build, create got me into the Massachusetts College of Art. After growing up in a small town in central Massachusetts, sans fellow oddities, I finally found myself around the other odd ducklings and makers of this world at MassArt. I spent four years getting my BFA in Sculpture, learning how to tell stories through my Art and Practices, and how to decipher the meanings behind the artworks, and events that surround us. I focused on myself and making my own art. Never really becoming too involved with things at a large scale. I had a few friends, and my artwork; that was all that mattered.

Unlike MassArt there wasn’t this constant drum of hundreds of other fledgling art makers to my left and right, people made and practiced their art in pockets of talent and community.

After graduating I left Boston for Worcester to work at a small company manufacturing custom sports equipment, and to start an active studio practice. The company went under a few months after I graduated. For the next two years I supported myself and my studio through things like art commissions, teaching, and painting houses. As I embedded myself into the local community and art scene, a few realizations came to the forefront of my mind. The first being Worcester was a city where publicly accessible art was made by older white men in positions of power, and the art they produced was stale and uninspired. Unlike MassArt there wasn't this constant drum of hundreds of other fledgling art makers to my left and right, people made and practiced their art in pockets of talent and community.

Understanding the “Art Scene in Worcester” is infuriating, Worcester has a jubilant underground music and performance art scene. Those pockets of Artists support an underground event scene, Where acts from around the US come to packed house shows. But these are distinctly “underground” and not for public consumption. I felt a great camaraderie and responsibility to this new community I called home, I yearned to be proactive, and do something… In a confluence of events I put together a Kickstarter using a series of sculptures I had just made for a commission that fell through, and raised thousands of dollars to put together a pop-up gallery.

I was able to rent an old mill space, renovate it, making hangable walls and paint every surface so the space looked and functioned like a gallery. With the help of other artists from MassArt we held an open submission for contemporary artworks made by recent entries of the art scene, collecting works from as far as Florida and NY. Multiple performance pieces, sound art, video works, sculpture, painting, and mixed media were Included in the exhibition; all in a space that was open to the public free of charge. This pop-up gallery showed both the public and the normally visible art scene the fresh and engaging art of the new generation.

I was flung into a deep depression from the fact he last 5 months of my life went to shit. The Fact that something I believed in so wholeheartedly was just an illusion.

I really enjoyed this experience and a few months later I found myself working as a contract employee for a Wildlife Sanctuary helping to craft the idea of their gallery space, and curating 2 shows one of which was not used because of conflicts between the art owners and the lawyers representing the Wildlife Sanctuary. I kept running into roadblocks to do the exact job I was hired to do. The realism that this was pretend non-profit, with a beautiful exterior. The pure idealism of this Sanctuary, was just a farce. I left because I could not partake in this mockery. This propelled me into a deep depression from the fact he last 5 months of my life went to shit. The Fact that something I believed in so wholeheartedly was just an illusion. I needed a Big change.

The Appalachian Trail.

After 3 weeks of preparing and gathering supplies, I left to walk.

Hiking the Appalachian trail is such an odd experience. It is full of very deep lows, and soaring ecstasies, but mostly monotony. There were days and days of being completely alone, with only the companionship of exhaustion and my thoughts. And days of intoxication and overdose not of booze, but on public interactions. There periods of time of zen like rhythm, not so much thinking as just being, feeling every heartbeat, paying attention to every step, and being completely in-tune with my body. Many days of physical pain and self-doubt. Many pages written in a journal.

The family picking us up gave us well over 20lbs of fresh produce, 1/2 mile from our shelter stop for the night, a rare treat of cheese, apples, chips, and chocolate.

Whenever I did encounter another person, I was treated with boundlessness of goodwill. The most often attribution of this goodwill is something called trail magic. Which unto itself is a broad category, in simple terms trail magic is any thing left along the trail for thru hikers to take; this includes water, food, supplies, clothing, books, etc…There was often cliff bars, apples, soda, the occasional beer…

One Pissy morning in Pennsylvania I was breaking a new pair of boots, and was handed $10, this was the first of many bills handed to me. Another Day in Virginia myself and two other hikers hitched along skyline drive, the family picking us up gave us well over 20lbs of fresh produce, 1/2 mile from our shelter stop for the night, a rare treat of cheese, apples, chips, and chocolate.

The thing about going between these extremes of solitude and lively interactions is that I would get emotional hangovers after going into town for a day, or talking to someone else on the trail. I would go back to the trail in this daze of thought, what my actions in the past have been, what my future actions should be. One of the many things that occupied my thoughts on the trail was a pulsing guilt for abandoning every aspect of my life. My friends and my family, especially a non-for-profit bicycle shop that I volunteer at, dedicated to teaching people bicycle maintenance while enabling them to earn a bike from our inventory of donated bicycles. The thoughts circling in my head, “What actions as a person might have the greatest effect on my community? How I can apply the skills and knowledge I have accumulated over my short lifespan to make the world better?”

I want to be part of something grand, a cultural institution that gives much to its community. The skills and talents I have so far developed in my life have led me down this avenue of art. I was able to do something for my community through a pop-up gallery, maybe I had a little impact on the soul of that Wildlife Sanctuary. I want to do more. I want to be involved with the kind of institution, one that understands its role as institution and a community that fosters those elements.