Isolation and Recovery…

My motivation for this project is personal, but not unique. After 13 years of attending this event, and many great years with Vertical Camp, I took a 10 year break. I had moved out of SF, divorced, changed my career, remarried, built a small business, saw my kids off to college and moved to Nevada City, CA. And then the pandemic struck us all and we retreated from each other to an extent not previously imagined.

I lost touch with my friends and connections. I’d lost touch until Josh & Kirk called me in to help build the tower. Yes, it could work. I’m free and want to come… excited again to work in the blazing sun and choking dust, to see my friends, to play fun jokes with people, to cook them surprise lunches in the A-frame, to just sit and talk and get to know each other.

The week affected me deeply. My own feelings of isolation became clear and I saw what I had been missing: being a member of the group; participating in a community effort; making playful art; meeting new people; building and creating; sharing and listening; and laughing in the mud.

This realization was the first step in recovering from the isolation I’d felt during the pandemic and the previous 10 years. Vertical Camp created a supportive space for its community to grow and flourish. The personal impact was felt by all who lived there and visited. The camp community inspired me to create my own work, to engage with, and to contribute back to, the group during this next year… to help others find what I’d just found!

My experience is not unique. Our times together opens up our hearts, brings us closer, and creates a bond. Years of routine and old habits fall away and we uncover ourselves inside: emotions, connections, friendships, trust… love. We awaken, emerge and transform.

The Archeon Project is a metaphor for that emotional awakening and transformation. The spirit we created during the week went into hyperdrive the day it rained. Instead of whining about missing so-n-so DJ at blah-de-blah camp, the group turned to each other in support and threw a raging party! The moment of discovering that the real beauty in this world are the people right in front of us; at that moment, the Archeon awakened and emerged from deep in the mud.

The Archeon responds to the communal spirit it detects in the life forms, rises from the ground and broadcasts its message to distant celestial objects. The symbolism is of each of us rising up, reaching outwards, sending our message, and connecting with others in the group.

The sculpture requires coordinated action by 3 participants. It responds by opening physically and beaming a message to the stars.  The physical opening, removal of protective shields from around the delicate communication organ symbolizes the vulnerability required to initiate authentic communication, to establish a true connection.

Connection = shared experience + empathy + vulnerability

For the team, the project is the shared experience.  Creativity requires empathy & vulnerability and there will be many hours spent building it. For the participants (at Burning Man) the sculpture calls attention to our recent isolation, builds self awareness and challenges all to take specific actions in their recovery.

This year was huge for many of us! So many new friends, connections made, revelations, muddy shoes and deliverance. We come through it all, tired and aglow, all lit up like a Christmas trees. We feel energized, directed, clear headed (mostly!) and the question becomes: How do we keep this feeling alive?

A call to action: well, don’t stop moving! Take some time to digest what’s happened, understand it for yourself, and reset your compass. Write it all down, focus your intention, share it, build a team and get to work! Start something big! Build a community around a project. Take charge and go for it!

Why do you do what you do? What’s the new 30 second elevator pitch for your life? Write it! Keep the spirit alive and send the message! If this project has a mission statement it is such:

The Archeon project inspires participation in the arts and builds community within a large and growing group of artists, fabricators, makers, doers, clowns, producers, performers, and instigators who have camped, played, cooked, wined, dined, suffered and laughed together over the years in the Black Rock desert. Building the art piece will sustain and strengthen our connections and inspire others to transform through participation and to create a brighter future for themselves.

It’s all about community, I’m convinced. It’s really that simple, but also difficult. You have to want it, work for it: community doesn’t come for free, you have to invest.

The Archeon Project is all about building community: a community of people with diverse backgrounds and skills will come together to create an art piece that testifies to the power of its own creation. We will engage interested spectators and participants, survey their sentiments and the role community art projects play in their lives and communicate the results back to the group. Our goal is to inspire others to start and build their own communities, particularly around grass roots art projects.

The project’s overarching goal is to inspire people to reconnect, to build community by setting its own example and by telling the story of transformation to others who attend the event. We have a story to tell and so let’s write it!

What if we changed the minds of just 2 people in this process, and they changed 4 the next year, and they changed 8, and so on and so on… We have enough scary viruses out there; let’s create a few good ones!