Possible next steps:
Simply to *camp* at Chesterton overnight. I could keep entertained by my phone, and I could take books. I could bring in white noise to drown out any neighborhood commotions. I could go down to the swamp. I could head up to the Plateau of Raw Art to hang out a bit. It might be fun. But I probably won’t do it anytime soon.
In 1983 I camped out for about a month at the Leola Creek watering hole just across the ridge. In the same year I created a makeshift teepee, also near this watering hole (what I’ve called Rediscovery more recently), and at the same place that people are *still* camping at, 25 years later almost. Yes, at some point I will camp out at Bigfoot, if it remains intact and the land isn’t developed. Because the land *will* be developed. Bigfoot is not protected property, like Whitehead Crossing, like Billfork and other places in Frank and Herman Parks. It is not within a park. It is simply land, very near town, that for one reason or another remains a void that progress has skipped over so far.
My theory, and perhaps I should have Carrcassonnee voice this instead of myself, is that Bigfoot is a *gift* to me at this point in my life. “We’ll give him some place that is safe so he won’t get into trouble,” is what the providers are thinking. “Let him stretch his imagination still, but in a protected microcosm.” I haven’t gotten tired of Bigfoot yet, despite many visits. And I dont’ see my interest in it waning much until the leaves go away again, when the rest of the local woods really open up to me once more. How many years will I have Bigfoot? I’m hoping quite a number. But realistically I’m shooting for 5 or 6. And I’m serious about it being created for me. For you, the reader, as well through me, but mainly for me on a physical level. How could this be?
Reverse engineered, Bigfoot doesn’t totally belong in the present. It is seeded in a more recent past. When I camped out at Rediscovery those 20-25 years ago, Bigfoot as I’m presenting it in this blog didn’t really exist. It was born out of an expansion project taking place at what is now the mainly vacant Plateau of Raw Art, namely the creating of a new playing field for the local high school. The Bigfoot forest roads and the swamp were made in the mid-90s sometime. It took them this long to become mature with vegetation. Open at the beginning, Bigfoot protects and nurtures now. The small pine forest hides. The lush swamp has been basically forgotten, although steps on one side indicate a more visited past. But at the bottom of it, I believe Bigfoot exists outside of time — that’s my point, I think. It exists in coordination with all else that surrounds it: the skateboarders up at the Plateau that come daily, the apartment dwellers to the north and east, the beautiful and almost certainly sentient Leola Creek marking a protecting eastern border for it. All these create a coordinated tension that Bigfoot slots into the middle of perfectly. It is a round peg in a round hole. But this perfect balance of tensions is temporary.
It is a nest. I am the egg. What will I become when hatched? The art happenings progress. They could not do so in Frank and Herman Parks. Those spaces belong to others, perhaps other artists, and of a much more advanced nature. True Bigfoot we are possibly talking about here, along with accompanying aliens. My art does not really complement or slot in easily with their art. These other artists might not understand the nature of the marbles and the toy avatars. They may be protective of their junk which is potentially used in a happening. Toy/junk happenings, the way I see them, are a *delicate* matter. I, we, are interacting with nature in a very intimate and creative manner. I am not constructing a building or school. I am not inflicting mass damage on the environment like an expansion project of a high school would do, or creating an apartment complex relatively unsensitive to the plants, the trees, the landscape that has to be sacrificed as a result. I am attempting to *blend* with an already established environment. The happening has many sides and angles. As stated, it coordinates with other art and habitation of a given region. The skateboarders of the Plateau of Raw Art, developing and refining their own work, are *unconsciously* aware of Bigfoot. I now sometimes walk quite close to them when returning to my car. “I am one of you,” I want to communicate. “We are working in a similar direction.”
The apartment dwellers across the creek unconsciously know of me and my Bigfoot involvement. They provide space; this is my space and that is theirs, just like the skateboarders. I do not like to expose myself to their viewings. The skateboarders, as well, must be kept at a certain arm’s length, despite some cool symmetries of artistic endeavors. It is good enough that all of these people create unconscious space for me and my own creative impulses. And the swamp and attached stream are certainly sentient in a way, also. What is it saying? Does it see or remember its beginning, its end? Who am I to it?
Sunklands 