I create my sketchbook entries improvisationally, drawing on Antarctic impressions
and recollections as I go along. By this process I’m building a visual vocabulary with
which to create the Long View Project’s sculptural pieces.

This particular composition codifies Antarctic tools, venesta shelving, and maps. My principal medium is cut paper, often reclaimed from old mail, packaging and scraps.

I’ve gotten word that the material I collected and shipped from Antarctica is at Port Hueneme on its way to San Francisco, so it won’t be long before it arrives. I’ll introduce the items as I unpack them, and will document their eventual incorporation into the artwork.

In the meanwhile, I’m formulating ideas for my compositions in a sketchbook I started recently. I’ll post pages here throughout the project to show their role in the process. The entries will be out of page order (that’s how I work on them) and in various stages of progress. The book will serve as a means of exploring shapes, colors, textures, and line; a place to work out the technical aspects of construction; a lab for spontaneous experimentation, for trying out found objects for size, and for re-working sketches and concepts to perfection… or to ruin. It’s a testing ground.

Here are a few of the many items I’ve acquired for my project so far. Most were generously donated by people who took an interest in my work. The weathered pieces came from Crunch, the Marble Point camp manager. He found them strewn about his Dry Valleys camp, remnants of the pre-Code of Conduct era.

The photo of a boy and two owls is a magazine clipping found in the Crary building by IT Science Support Manager Karen Joyce. It was tacked to the wall of an empty workspace. The who, when, and why of the photo remains a mystery.

More stuff from Marble Point, and a flag tattered by Antarctic winds. (Thanks Sharona!)

Studies in patina and rust, retrieved from the Dry Valleys. Conservation policy allows removal of garbage from the general landscape, but not from historic sites.