Elusive Landscape: Arch Creek Park ~ Wow!

THANK YOU to everyone who helped to make the event at Arch Creek Park as spectacular and magical as it turned out. I am especially grateful to the incredible installation crew - they were like animals in the jungle, stretching cables and speaker wires through the forest. Like having a couple of Indiana Jones's on the set, it was amazing to watch them at work. I also want to extend an immense thank-you to the elusive yet tireless Park Manager at Arch Creek Park: Ms. Sally Timberlake. Her wholehearted support and cheerful attitude really helped to get the project off the ground.

The soundscape by Ricardo Lastre is amazing - it was hard to figure out where nature ended and the recording began. Ricardo threw together a mashup of eerie and dark sound effects mixed with light urban pop and tribal insinuations, layered with frogs and snails and puppydog tails... I'm sure that this helped tremendously in making people want to hang around and endure the climate. But I am grateful to all who fully surrendered to the experience and truly enjoyed the event. This was definitely art you had to sweat for - the trek up and down the Military Trail to see all of the seven projections was long and dark, and many people covered it more than once, searching for missed clues. The projections were kind of hidden in the forest, so it was like a treasure hunt adventure, out in the woods at night. You had to cover the trail to discover all seven. It was very playful.

Everybody was delighted, and a group of folks from the Arch Creek Trust were extremely interested and supportive, as they have been on a mission to preserve the park and to call attention to the contamination of Arch Creek for many years. They were especially pleased that many newcomers had visited the park for the first time that night. My home-made, all-natural, non-toxic insect repellent was a big hit (and it worked!) and overall the event went as i had hoped: kids, families, people with dogs, park regulars, artists, everybody somehow enjoying the evening in spite of the bugs, the heat and the incredible humidity.

Can't wait to do it again at Legion Memorial Park on July 17 - a whole different kind of experience, given the fact that Legion Park is a whole different kind of park than Arch Creek. Stay tuned for more news and updates on the next installation of Elusive Landscape... coming to a park near you SOON!