LA DECOM

This took me a great deal longer to post than I intended, but at long last, here are some shots from the Los Angeles Decompression Party. I feel as though I only photographed just an 1/8th of it. I met so many wonderful people and saw so many beautiful things... 

Please, enjoy my photos. Click to enlarge. 

Los Angeles Seraphim Project

Earlier this week, I drove downtown to visit the Seraphim that stand in the Los Angeles Historic Park. I was welcomed to decorate the structure with my hopes and dreams. I wound up writing letters to those I was thinking about at the moment - my friends from Burning Man, and my sister. Here are some of the photos I took, below. 

Click to enlarge. 

Want to know more? 

Check it out here - 

http://www.laburningman.com/index.php/decom-flyer-contest 

Meditating

I wanted a photo of my morning attire, and the campsite, at the end of the week, and this is it.

Pictured here is myself, in my red silk bath-robe, my goggles around my neck, my military pants, and my boots. To the left is Nate's fearsome bike, emblazoned with a Tribal-style mask that lit up and shot lasers out of its eyes at night, and behind me is a Tardis that has "crash-landed".

Mornings were my favorite. I found this to be a strange time of day... the city mostly quiet, with only little trickles of music and yawns punctuating the dusty air... with a handful of camps moving sluggishly as they stretched out in the sun or laid strips of bacon on their grill. I found the heat and light to be too unbearable inside my tent and traveled alone in this attire, searching for conversations, new art, and fresh faces. Sometimes I craved solitude and stayed at the camp until my camp-mates woke. But most mornings, I was out and about before everyone else, ready to tackle the day. Which is particularly strange and unusual if you know anything about my typical morning habits (hiding under the covers and bemoaning my alarms).

Blur

My head was spinning and the things I held in my hands were making less and less sense. The camera I so dearly loved suddenly became an object from the future, and the buttons all blurred together. But still, in my, ahem, "altered" state, I still managed to take a few photos of passing art-cars and lights (I was most keenly interested in lights!). The following morning I laughed quietly to myself as I reviewed my recent art-work.

This was an art-car that I took a photo of  --- an enormous gold-fish on wheels. People inside were bobbing and dancing to music. They may have been handing out alcohol. I can't remember.

Following the Octopus

The sun had set.
The moon had risen.
We shouldered our packs, and started walking.

My comrades stared about them with pupils the size of mars, and we drifted after the Octopus like Pilot fish after a shark. The Octopus had not started his fire show yet, and instead rattled through the streets, metal skin banging and clanging with every jostle and jolt in the road... this eyes and teeth ever gaping and gnashing. We traveled together for some time, in search of the same thing...

The open desert.

Wisdom box

Being a Sir

Bill, exhausted, elated, in the middle of telling a story... basking in the late afternoon sun.

Juno

The Temple of Juno rose like a dream out of the desert.

Here, I laid down letters to loved ones who have passed on... I stood beside thousands of others who came to do the very same. Inside the temple, we lay in the dust as the lace-like shadows crept over out tear-stained faces, listening to the soft whispers of the letters rustling in the wind.

 Inside was silent, and sacred.

 Inside, we were a world apart.

Moon rise

The ending of a day felt like an awakening. As the sun crept nearer to the tops of the mountains, our spirits were lifted. The temperatures dropped. The chaos quieted for several hours as we sat together and ate, and talked, rested, and prepared to venture forth into the unknown... the deepest reaches of the desert. The adolescent moon, dimly present during the day, now began to come into her own and glow, shining down on our city, casting her pale shadows.

Such a time was magical. Full of promise, wonder, speculation. What adventures will we find?, we seemed to say to each other, as we smiled and laughed, huddled around our bowls of beef jerky and pita bread.
Who will we meet? 
Will we dance? 
Will we get to the place, far from the city, were light no longer exists?  Where we cannot hear the droning rhythm of our human race? Where we will begin to wonder if we are instead on a distant planet? 

The moon rise brought us a sense of wonder I had not felt since I was a child.

Ends of the Earth

My friends and I traveled deep into the desert, until the beat of the music died to a dull hum, and the warmth fell away, leaving us shivering. There was no light, aside from the nearly-full moon, and the twinkling roar of the city at our back. We pressed onward until our legs nearly gave out, feeling like we must be exploring some alien landscape. From time to time, a little flash would catch our eyes, and we'd drift towards it, to find that someone had installed an enormous couch or palm tree or musical instrument or scrabble board this far away from the city. And so we played and explored and shivered in our post-apocalyptic waste-land until sleep finally beckoned us back to our camp, and we staggered on home.

Temple streets

Leading out to the Temple, the path is lined with poles. These poles bear lanterns in the evening... small fires littered with promises and hopes as they are hung up, to burn through the night and help you find your way.

During the day, I got trapped here during a dust storm, and had to crouch down for several minutes, hastily pulling on my goggles and bandanna. In the distance here, you can see the start of the storm.

The dust

The ground intrigued me from the moment the dust began to wash over our windshield. The earth was concrete-hard, and cracked, with fine ridges and grooves. And from where it was scored, fine dust rose up in white clouds and blanketed everything in sight. There was no escaping the dust. My cell phone (now a useless weight of plastic) was folded into my notebook and kept in a pillowcase in my tent... and by the end of the week, I was blowing dust off of it as thought it were a relic from Indiana Jones.

Upskirt

Inside the Roman Colloseum structure that supported our famous emblem, one had an open air view of the Man's enormous crotch. I took the liberty to document such an occasion.

Skeleton in the desert

Good Morning

I woke up feeling shaky and clammy after 4 hours of sleep. I hadn't allowed myself to adjust to the climate the night before, and after the scary adventures of fighting wind-storms and altitude and dust in my lungs... I hadn't rested or gone to bed like the others. Nope. Instead I set off, hungry for adventure, my chest heaving as I struggled to catch enough air. I knew, even as I set out, that I was going to feel like shit in the morning, but didn't care. Why? Because there were art cars to chase down, the Temple to visit, and people to meet. Even at 4 am.

But once I woke, I couldn't go back to sleep. I knew I'd feel better if I could just get some more rest, but it seemed impossible. For one, my tent had become an oven and I was sweating too much to be comfortable. Also, I woke with such an excitement that I hadn't felt since I was 5 years old and it was Christmas.

I set a mental reminder to take an easy day...not just today but everyday. I had heard stories of newbies winding up in the Medical tents on their second or third days because they didn't know when to stop. I made a decision to not take the same route, and as much as I wanted to immediately run out into the city, I forced myself to stay for an extra hour or so.

I pulled back the tent flap and climbed out of our monkey hut, blinking owlishly in the blazing sun. There was a bit of a breeze, so I took off my shirt, remaining in my bra, and took a seat in some shade. My camp-mates were all still asleep and so I treated myself to a breakfast of Pringles, Pickles, Pita Bread, (the alliteration was not lost on me) and a whole Liter of water, before setting off to meet the neighbors.

White-out coming

Another dust storm rolling in.

Drunken hula hooping

This was my first night.

After a harrowing 5 hour session of fighting our tents and convincing them to stay put in the 60 mph winds and dust storms, trying not to hyperventilate as we acclimated to the altitude, and staving off serious dehydration... my camp-mates fell into an exhausted doze and slept until morning.

I, however, could not.

The lights were beckoning. There was a soft whisper of dubstep in the distance. And so I set off. Within a half hour, I was properly drunk and playing with everything in sight. And thus, it began.

Fuego, the horse

Our neighbors came over in the dead of night and asked for our help. In the friendly community spirit, I jumped up and volunteered. Before I knew it, I was installing an art project: A life-size sculpture of a horse named 'Fuego' created from barbed wire. The following evening, at sunset, my neighbors lit his mane and eyes, and I at long last understood his title.

Fuego burned every night, all night long, and helped us to find our way back home.

Pyramid lake

The sight of such crystal clear blue water made us literally salivate. Our eyes drifted towards the beautiful lake, stretching on for miles, until it was once more covered by a low hill, folded back into the earth. Our thoughts turned to the road before us, knowing that was the final landmark before the gates of the promised land.

Lonely highway

The insanity of Reno

I want to see mountains, Gandalf. Mountains!