Category Archives: BIGFOOT

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Bigfoot/Chesterton Early Early August

Plateau of Raw Art shots, once more…

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… before moving to Chesterton. This day (yesterday as I’m writing this, or Sunday), I pretty firmly mapped out the segments of Second Road starting at The Bramble and moving south. Indicated by successive pine trees running down the forest road’s east side, there are indeed 14 of ’em, as I estimated earlier. Chesterton occupies the first 5, counting north to south like this. Here’s a rudimentary graphic of the results. What I call “blocked” segments that are clogged with fallen trees and branches are marked with a diagonal. I may have been missing one or two of these types in the non-Chesterton areas. Just as The Bramble effectively deters any visitors coming in from the north, so these blocked regions act as barriers for those attempting to move along the road starting from the south. Chesterton is very protected.

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So with this mapping in place, we can understand the below shot comes from segment 1 of 14, or the top Chesterton segment. I’m tempting to even call these segments *sims*, but let’s hold off on that for a bit longer…

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This is also from Segment 1: the wilted purple leaves appears like two beached fishes turned opposite ways, like the symbol for the astrological sign Pisces. They are found in the midst of that little “forest” taking up a fair chuck of Segment One.

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Segment Two gives us what I’m calling Chesterton North. I really like the way the two monkeys both face the golden church bell between them — more inversed twinning, in fact.

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That mysterious hole mentioned before LINK, appearing directly under Wireway 61 as it passed through Segment 3. This segment acts as a more empty connector between Chesterton North and Chesterton South. I’ll have to create a more detailed map soon.

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This is a picture of an object from Segment 6, which *may* be the site of a camping spot in the future. My camping spot. Located immediately south of the “Chesterton Five”, it’s one of the most open segments, if not the most open, and I certainly have room to pitch some kind of tent there. But I’m going to keep poking around Bigfoot for possible alternatives in this direction.

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Segment 9 and a landmark brick piece.

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The south end of Second Road, or the beginning (south) of Segment 14. 2 rocks, one mossy and one bare, mark the position.

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Bigfoot/Chesterton Late Late July

Although the Chesterton art event has reached its climax, Bigfoot visits continue, and will likely do so until the leaves fall off sometime around mid October. After that my hiking focus will shift to a broader woods palette, as they open up with the functional eradication of poison ivy, snakes, insects, and other warm weather deterrents.

I visited both Bigfoot and Whitehead Crossing today, new and old foci. I was amazed how *quiet* Whitehead Crossing seems now after I’ve gotten use to the city noise surrounding Bigfoot. I like the latter better now, amazingly. Whitehead Xing is just not going to be a place for, especially, a summer art happening like I just accomplished at Bigfoot. Perhaps spring, perhaps fall, but not summer. And even if that, the event will take place within a narrower range. For one, I have no real junk to work with at The Crossing except for some old bottles. However I’m not opposed to making a more pure toy happening, say, at Big Island in Green Stream, something perhaps akin to the Sharieland toy event of 2013. LINK

But to today’s photos. Actually I decided to slip in the first photo below coming from about a week or two back now to start this post with another odditiy. When I went to Chesterton that day — and it was the day I brought in the Avon buildings sans chords for the first time — I found this melding of yellow and green leaves, effectively stuck together like with glue. Green on top, yellow on the bottom. This seemed to be reference to the concept of Greenup/yellow down that I’ve written about at various places on this blog, and most recently in this Second Life related post.

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Compare the above photo with the one inserted at the end of that late June post:

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Actually, I think I’ll come back to that whole scene, which involves a weird melding of First or Real Life and Second Life influences. It could be that *real* (green) trumps *virtual* or non-real (yellow) through the Chesterton art event as a whole. The true happening kicked into gear right after I created that June post. Second Life related posts have basically been set aside since then.

Another, more recent possible oddity is pictured below. A number of mysterious holes, with pine needles seemingly twirled around in a circle, have formed in Chesterton since my last visit several days back now. The photo below shows what seems to be the largest example of such, occurring almost directly below Wireway 61 between Chesterton North and South. Was some kind of creature *digging* into the needles? Maybe it’s my friend Mr. Weasel from the swamp, who may very well live somewhere in The Bramble just beyond and below Chesterton. Or maybe it is a raccoon. I don’t think deer can get through the tight branches of the pine forest here, so that seems to eliminate the possibility of hoof prints.

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Many aspects of Chesterton, let alone Bigfoot as a whole, have yet to be illuminated for this blog, including this cluster of briar plants on Chesterton’s east side. I imagined Chesterton residents making them part of a park or walking trail…

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… that would also include Second Hoop mentioned in this earlier post, which is now seemingly the *only* complete hoop within Chesterton, since First Hoop was broken near the start of its art happening. Second Hoop perhaps then became known simply as The Hoop, at least to biased Chesterton South avatars.

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Second Hoop (foreground) with The Briars (background).

Also on Chesterton’s east side is found this rusty chair skeleton with Wireway 49 passing through it. A detached briar stem now crosses the wireway here as well.

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Many toy avatars remain in both Chesterton North and South after the event’s climax and the removal of the train track. I had planned to put some inside Chesterton’s old pressure cooker today, or perhaps take them back to the house with me, but they seemed pretty happy overall where they were. Not sure how long this situation will last.

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Monkeys on church and hill.

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North of Chesterton North.

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Creativity Review

SEE SUNKLANDS HEADERS:

About:

The Sunklands site plugs along! I am very fortunate to have such a creative center. I plan to retain it into the foreseeable future. No problems here.

Blog:

This will always go hand in hand with the Sunklands web site now. I’ve been blogg’n for 8 1/2 years. I love it. One of the problems for someone looking in is the multitude of subject matter. There’s woodsy reality, there’s viritual living, there’s fiction… lots of stuff. But add it all together and you get artsy me.

Collages:

Bread and butter stuff, again. I’ll keep collaging till the day I die most likely. The idea of series will keep evolving. I’ll most likely always accompany collage creation with attempts at interpretation. The last coupling of collage and analysis is through the Boos series from last fall, which I consider perhaps my most unified and fulfilling effort in this direction to date. A new series has yet to form beyond it, but I’ve been busy with other art.

The base series of my modern or mature collages remains the 20 part Greenup set from 2004. Seems like a really long time ago now. Before that I more sporatically worked with the old time method (to me) of cutting images out of magazines and pasting them together. But I probably won’t work in that way again. Digital collage is more my style. I’m not worried about the selling aspect, and create them only for the purpose of pushing the boundaries of the genre itself in a certain direction. They are “educational” in my eyes, although I’m not against selling *specific* examples in the future (just not whole series, perhaps).

Synchs:

The progression of synchs started in 1997 with the first steps toward the idea of a Rainbow Complex beyond just the “mere” Dark Side of the Rainbow, a gateway synch for certain. To me, it was the birth of rainbowology, which I haven’t really written about all that much yet. Oh, there’s been some pretend interviews with the likes of Booker T. and Pierre Schaeffer (actually alts), but I’ve chosen to keep certain key elements hidden until I figure out what to do with the concept as a whole.

But that’s just the start. Synchs continue to this day, though creation has slowed recently to about once a year. I may even be at a longer pause currently. I’ll have to talk to Hucka D. about this soon.

baker b. separated from alt Pierre Schaeffer in 2004 with the creation of the former’s Greenup series. At roughly the same time came the latter’s Billfork, Head Trip, and 4orrin1. 4orrin1 especially blew the lid off what I formerly thought an audiovisual synch could be. It remains blown.

Hybrids:

Latest in this category is the blandly named (on purpose) “Collagesity Winter 2015-2016” fiction — it’s actually what you could call a graphic novel set in Second Life (and its “moon” and also the *moon* of *that* moon). A next project could involve interpreting this fairly large work, like I do with my collage series. It falls in line with other fiction I’ve developed in spots down through time, the first successful one being perhaps “The High Octave Story” from way back in 1986 or so (rewritten in the early 90s, if I recall). Then along the same lines we have “Jordan’s Rule” from c2001, and then also the larger “Paradox II: The Chancelling” that came along late 2005/early 2006. I need to finish that off… technically it could probably be called a hybrid work as well.

Looking at other hybrids on this page, “Map Synching Feeling” is an interesting experiment with map oddities; “6 Weeks of Shining” combines collage work, map research, and elements of audiovisual synching, tied together through Stanley Kubrick’s film “The Shining”; “Baker Bloch in England” represents a fusion of collage, fiction and virtual reality a bit in the style of “Collagesity Winter 2015-2016” (except set in “reality”/ i.e., England); 2009’s “Where are We on That?” is a good introduction to my original set of virtual characters, most of whom are still around (Baker Bloch, Baker Blinker, Hucka Doobie, etc.). Hybrids will keep being produced.

Virtual:

I continue to hold onto Collagesity, and certainly work on keeping it up paid off more recently with its use in “Collagesity Winter 2015-2016” mentioned before. But has it fulfilled its usefulness? One thing it’s certainly not is a proper archives for the collages (and synchs). The Sunklands site, established last summer, instead has become this… but I would like to keep a virtual town going along with the site, if possible. Second Life’s Collagesity remains a comparatively inexpensive satisfaction, I suppose, in this direction, but my guess is that in the future a virtual town will not cost as much, relatively speaking, and can be rolled into web site payments.

Reality:

Another recent success story with the unfolding of the many Bigfoot dimensions. Polarity between Bigfoot Proper and Chesterton is involved, the two identified artsy centerpieces of the complex. Each has now been the site of a fulfilled marble race and connected toy/junk happening. Whitehead Crossing represents the other important woodsy center still, and lies on protected ground (Frank Park) in contrast to Bigfoot, which could go away with the snap of a finger. But toy/junk happenings may not ever really come to Whitehead Crossing, unlike what I thought before — up until maybe even this past winter. Bigfoot has taken over in this direction. Bigfoot may be temporary, but my attachment to Blue Mountain in general also is temporary now, as we plan to move to Middletown in 6-8 years. We have land there, we can set up a modular home with little maintenance for our old age, and Middletown is such a neat city with many creative plugins. I can’t imagine leaving Blue Mtn. for anywhere else in the U.S. of A., although *England* remains a possible final destination. But that’s a long story.

Back to toy/junk happenings. These will certainly continue beyond Blue Mtn. and into our Middletown existence. I’m just refining the process now; winging it as they say. And Bigfoot itself may continue into the future. I have the option to camp there even when living in Middletown, since we’ll be retired. And Whitehead Crossing, too, probably has long term value, if in a more abstract way and connected to local Frank and Herman Parks as a whole. But I don’t think I want to camp in Frank and Herman Parks. Too many aliens.

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Bigfoot Video

The legend of Ol’ Plugg’n Yellow is born (video by wife; thanks!):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4wxrj04cq13kdiq/IMG_1045.MOV?dl=0

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Bigfoot Gleanings 01

The Bigfoot/Chesterton art event is pausing for now with the very successful marble race test this past Sunday. A new marble legend has been seeded: Ol’ Plugg’n Yellow, who was the most consistent finisher of the 10 or so marbles I tried out that day. Not too fast, not too slow. Just right; another “goldilochs” situation, like with Greenilochs in last fall’s Bigfoot marble race. LINK But perhaps a truer goldilochs this time, since the colors match up now. Yellow/gold.

Interesting: as I was looking up the word “plugger” online just now, my flash player plugin froze my computer up for a moment. 😮

What do I take away from the event so far? Well, there’s the very interesting separation of Chesterton North, where the focus of the marble race was on, and Chesterton South, which turned into an observer of the event, in effect. To me, this means that the latter has more potential for growth beyond the present situation. Lisa Simpson, aka Lisa the Vegetarian, may get her own office space in the town. There was a very late push to unite the two bergs a bit with a curved piece of wood procured from the press box of the old high school football field up at the Plateau of Raw Art — but it was only a token gesture, most likely. Maybe there isn’t any deeper connection to develop between North and South. It’s another wait and see situation.

Linking curved piece of wood “pointing” to Chesterton South’s central pressure cooker “building” in background, then:

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“Hucka D., I was wondering if I could pose a couple of Chesterton related question to you?”

Hucka D.:

Okay. I’ll give it a try.

bb:

Carrcassonnee has stated that I need to take my focus away from Chesterton for a while.

Hucka D.:

That is true[ enough]. Chesterton has its own spirit. You know him — the cheetah?

bb:

Sure. Should I talk to him? He’s never given much information out about the town.

Hucka D.:

Groovy. I’ll get him.

Chester (appearing from behind a white curtain):

Groovy. Cool-i-o, daddy. State your questions man.

bb:

Chester, what is in the future for Chesterton? Is this really the true manifestation of Edwardboro and Project POPE? Like the original Bigfoot Proper event was Pope Project, a preparatory event, like John The Baptist paved the way for Jesus of Nazareth.

Chester:

Died for your sins. Neat-o.

bb:

Is this what Lisa the Vegetarian wants to negotiate — with you maybe?

Chester (indicating):

Over there Lisa? Lisa the Cool and Groovy and Chilled?

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BBloch:

Ummmm…

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Next…

“Thank you for speaking with me tonight Carrcassonnee.”

Carr.:

We are always measured by pain and pleasured.

bb:

Thanks for that.

Carr.:

You’re welcomed. You have questions about Chesterton?

bb:

Well, the event seems over. I won’t be able to get out to Bigfoot for maybe another week. Momentum loss. But great success, if so! Better than even the original Bigfoot event last year.

Carr.:

You bask in success. You eat your cake. Drink it too. Bigfoot is big!

bb:

I want to delve deeper into its past. There’s a chance, a *chance*, that it may be around for 10, even 20 more years. It could be a mid-summer destination.

Carr.:

2 fer 1. Different. Unique. Weasel there, even! Next is something different, however. Next is…

bb:

Yes?

Carr.:

You’ll see.

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Bigfoot/Chesterton Late July Happening — Wife’s Pics

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The Silvers/ End of Original 12.

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The Stage.

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The Veer 01.

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The Veer 02.

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The Veer 03.

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The Veer 04.

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Track repair.

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The Silvers support 01.

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The Silvers support 02.

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Taking down the track (sob!).

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Chesterton North (observer).

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Plateau of Raw Art.

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The Veer and Ol’ Plugg’n Yellow (!).

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Bigfoot/Chesterton Late July Art Happening 02

So let’s just move backwards up the track now from end to beginning, starting with… the end. In test runs day before yesterday (Sunday), a peak day for the happening, marbles usually just barely made it over the finish line, slowing considerably in the Original 12 (12 pieces of rustier track at the end of the race) from a speedy entry. In future realizations of the track, I may replace the rustier track with newer stuff — unsure. At any rate, as I stated before, I’ve decided not to make the Original 12 permanent within Chesterton, but just took it back home with me like the rest of the 39, currently shinier segments.

You can see the end of the track roughly parallels Wireway 61 coming in from the north.

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This is a juxtaposition of the end of the track (lower part) with the beginning of the track (upper part), which lie directly in line with each other, essentially. This further symmetry was planned, and forms part of Chesterton’s overall synchronistic web, shall we say. I’ll have to see how high the beginning of the track is relative to the bottom the next time I set it up.

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The center of the Original 12, or what I call The Veer for obvious reasons. It all kind of centers around that Avon church product and related mossy rock.

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But in another way, nearby Pooh (right) with butterfly on his nose fluttering above the Snow Queen’s purse represents the center, along with resonant, large metal butterfly positioned on the bank behind them.

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The end of the Original 12 and the beginning of the remaining 39 segments, silvery in color. It’s so appropriate that a very silver door knob holds up the first of these sections, accompanied by a toy avatar we’ll call Small Silver Surfer (SSS or 3S). The wife took a better picture of this pairing that I’ll show in the next post…

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The Original 12 is made up of 4 straight segments of train track surrounding 4 central, curved tracks (aforementioned Veer). The Additional 39, as we’ll term them, begins with a similar 4 segment straight run…

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which connects to 2 curved tracks…

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… before straightening out with 4 more track sections…

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… before leading into 3 curved sections, all turning clockwise now…

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… that turns into the Big Straightaway of *8* track segments. This is the place marbles pick up their greatest speed heading downward…

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… after first navigating this curve where marble speed is at a minimum, at least until the very end of the track right at the Finish Line. Some marbles I raced didn’t make it through this turn, halting forward progress.

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Two additional 45 degree turns…

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… gets us to the 2 brick supported starting section whose end represents the highest part of the track. We’ve reached the beginning.

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Looking back down the track toward Big Straightaway.

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Bigfoot/Chesterton Late July Art Happening 01

Before moving to Chesterton again and the possible climax of the 2016 Bigfoot Art Happening, here’s a couple more pictures from the improvised skateboarding park at the Plateau of Raw Art. I took these fairly early in the morning before the coming of skateboard people, who almost invariably arrive on any given day in the afternoon, sometimes en-masse (up to 15 or 20 perhaps).

There’s those Boos again. Such happy creatures in general.

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But this one — not so much. Perhaps that’s because he (or she) is the more uncommon vampire boo.

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KOOL-ade, hehe. That actually could be a representation of a toy avatar. Remember this guy?

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But to the actual toy avatars down in Chesterton… I can’t pretend there’s much rhyme or reason for this particular arrangement of toys except to say I’ve eliminated some from the crowd and replaced them with others. Okay, there might be a story behind Cpt. America and the (female?) chipmunk with an “A” on its sweater almost holding hands, while another chipmunk (jealous male?) watches. And the central tiger PEZ dispenser goes along with the already established tiger theme of Chesterton and Bigfoot as a whole this year. I also wanted to make sure the Simpsons family was on hand this day to watch the completion and fulfillment of the marble race. Homer’s always indiscriminately encouraging the competing marbles onward; he didn’t choose sides. There might be something to the pig seeming to climb, King Kong like, the Empire State Building, while The Joker looks on. Probably not, though. I also like the way the orange rust on the track mirrors the orange tiger head.

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This photo depicts the central part of Chesterton North built around the Original 12, the name I’ve given to the 12 rustier tracks that I had planned to be a permanent fixture of Chesterton. Didn’t quite work out like that, but the idea is still in place.

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Part of the new track I layed down this day — and the day before. Not nearly as rusty; much more silver in color. The picture takes in what probably amounts to be at least the beginning of a Chesterton Central, between North and South parts and acting as a bridge community. Earlier in the day it contains several more bricks (“houses”?), but these were then removed and used to help prop up the higher part of the marble race track. And, yes, it was a very successful race this day! Get to that in a bit.

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This photo couples the spots on the track where the racing marbles are traveling about the least speed (upper part) and the greatest speed (lower part).

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Chesterton South. Not much happened in this area today, its residents being more distant onlookers to the race going on over in Chesterton North. “We’ll have our day in the sun,” they perhaps collectively thought, their inward eyes turned to the future.

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Rejected toy avatars for the race, many of which couldn’t stand on their own power. Did they loose their souls upon rejection? No longer avatars? It could be something to ponder.

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These animals are actually part of the happening, but on a more outlying area north of the race track’s end.

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Nearby (broken) hoop, a primary icon for Chesterton. LINK

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Wireway 61 separates one from the other.

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Notes

The Chesterton/Bigfoot summer art event is closing in on a peak and possible conclusion with the projected creation of a working marble track tomorrow. Great excitement! The two parts of Chesterton, North and South, seem to be bridged together as much as possible right now through the track. More details tomorrow with photos.

Bigfoot has its own resident *weasel*. Can’t recall seeing one in the wild, but this past Friday I witnessed the creature enter Bigfeet Swamp from The Bramble not once not twice but three times, obviously following a path. And he exited Bigfeet Swamp at the same spot on the first two of the three visits: Mina’s Pool, where he seemed to enjoy a brief splash in the water before heading uphill again. My guess is that he might even make his home in The Bramble, and hunt for frogs, salamanders, and such in the swamp (I don’t think he lives in the swamp). Maybe he was after some particular creature that day. But anyway, I am not alone at Bigfoot! I don’t want to run directly into Mr. Weasel on my walks, but I’m sure he’s aware of my presence by now.

Tomorrow:
… make sure to take several sizes of marbles to Chesterton so that at least one successful marble run can be accomplished. Right now, the count of the track segments for the race totals 49, I believe, taking it beyond Bigfoot Proper’s 42 1/2 from last fall. Biggest one yet.
… take paper towels so that I can clean off my yellow Adirondack chair imported to Bigfoot Proper this weekend. I’d like to sit there and enjoy the swamp tomorrow for a bit before heading uphill to Chesterton. Maybe I’ll see Mr. Weasel, once more.
… I’ll have to take down the track tomorrow after a projected successful marble run (except for the 12 pieces of permanent track). Rain is more likely tomorrow afternoon than it was on either Fri or Sat. And scattered showers are in the forecast for the foreseeable future. Now is the time…

Other:
… study Boos collages again to see how Bigfoot and, especially now, the balance of Bigfoot Proper and Chesterton art events are possibly coded within. I believe they are associated with yang and yin energies respectively. Will new collages also further this association? How about a/v synchs?

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Bigfoot Marble Race almost completed!

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The Silvers help.

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