Art/Work

If you're one of the regular 2.3 readers of this blog, you'll be aware that I am sadly unemployed at the moment (in terms of a job that pays money). I finally followed up on one of the organizations that caught my interest shortly after moving here: the Triangle Land Conservancy. Being a nonprofit, I figured they might not have very much in the way of money or staff, and checking out their website I discovered that their communications person clearly wears about 500 different hats and appears to have little-to-no help.

Score!

I decided to email them and see if they could use a volunteer with my impressive and slightly insane professional skillset. Good opportunity, right, to continue to add to my portfolio and build new connections in the nonprofit community. Long story short, they were thrilled to have help, and I'm embarking on a project to update a cute little web series they started but abandonned on ways to play on Triangle Land Conservancy-protected space. I'll be updating the writing, but in order to make sure that the various activities they mentioned are still available, I'll be traveling around to a variety of locations throughout the area. I'll get to explore nature and surrounding communities, making discoveries and highlighting all kinds of things. I got permission to rearrange the web pages a bit to accomodate photographs, and started to feel pretty pleased with the whole thing.

Then I had an idea.

Back in California, where I lived for 18 years before moving to NC, there was a nifty little local TV show called "Bay Area Backroads." The host, an engaging jeans-clad local celeb named Doug McConnell, every week drove his Jeep to some of the interesting, amusing, and lesser known pleasures and delights of the Bay Area. The show featured beautiful drives, adventure activities, lovely unique little places to stay, artists, restaurants, farms, and peculiarities of all kinds.

Now I'm not a TV producer, nor have I played one on TV. But I know my way around a video camera and an editing suite. So I threw the idea out there for TLC; how about a little bit of video on these adventures they've already identified, posted to a special YouTube channel and promoted on the web site as a regular feature?

It went over super-well. So that's a go.

And then it hit me.

Photos. Video. Visits. Journal notes. This isn't just a volunteer freelance job, it's an art project.

So I'm announcing it now, the birth of this multimedia art project built around TLC's protected holdings. It reminds me of what I did at Pt. Reyes while I was in graduate school. There will be photographs and video pieces. Books and a web site and found objects. Journaling, mapping, and K-12 curriculum. An interactive component. It's not just a project, it's a show.

To be continued ... !