david shrigley - uk sketch + performance artist has a really interesting piece found here:
River For Sale
Friday, May 04, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Seismographic Sketches
Seismographic Sketches of Grove Park Roads from a Dynamic Epicenter
For the Grove Park classification project, I chose to classify roads in Grove Park through an experiment in mapping. I made paintings that were etched into while still wet. The etched lines are made by scratching into the surface of the painted matte board while riding as passenger in a truck with my eyes closed in the dark. I let my hand, holding a tool with a pointed end act like a seismometer to record the variations in the surface of the road by feel, rather than vision. Each time the vehicle turned I began a new painting, so that each painting records a road. Several paintings also record the process of turning around at impasses, or backing up along roads already traveled. Each painting was started at a point in the center of the matte board.
The project allowed me to re-classify my knowledge of roads, and specifically the roads inthe park. Common ways of knowing roads are through maps and signs of various kinds, or through descriptions and directions (language, symbols, representational, scaled, drawings) but over the course of several trips to Grove Park, an alternative method of knowing the paths traversing the park became the most exciting. Finding myself in the area with a useless map and no signs became the most exciting part of my experiences there. I began to feel a certain freedom and sense of adventure in traveling blindly along, navigating the tree trunks, holes, small ponds, sand pits, and other obstacles. Driving there created my awareness of the place. Directions, navigation, and location became irrelevant--my experience of the place became about how it feels to travel over those particular unkempt surfaces in an 87 Toyota pickup.
The project classifies my experience of Grove Park in terms of the way I got to know it, through magnitude and transmission of vibration into line rather than through spatial representations or delineation through words. While in words I would classify the experience as regressive, phenomenological, non-linguistic, raw, tactile, the paintings refute the neccessity for words and classify in an alternative way, according to the fluxuations of moving over surfaces.
For the Grove Park classification project, I chose to classify roads in Grove Park through an experiment in mapping. I made paintings that were etched into while still wet. The etched lines are made by scratching into the surface of the painted matte board while riding as passenger in a truck with my eyes closed in the dark. I let my hand, holding a tool with a pointed end act like a seismometer to record the variations in the surface of the road by feel, rather than vision. Each time the vehicle turned I began a new painting, so that each painting records a road. Several paintings also record the process of turning around at impasses, or backing up along roads already traveled. Each painting was started at a point in the center of the matte board.
The project allowed me to re-classify my knowledge of roads, and specifically the roads inthe park. Common ways of knowing roads are through maps and signs of various kinds, or through descriptions and directions (language, symbols, representational, scaled, drawings) but over the course of several trips to Grove Park, an alternative method of knowing the paths traversing the park became the most exciting. Finding myself in the area with a useless map and no signs became the most exciting part of my experiences there. I began to feel a certain freedom and sense of adventure in traveling blindly along, navigating the tree trunks, holes, small ponds, sand pits, and other obstacles. Driving there created my awareness of the place. Directions, navigation, and location became irrelevant--my experience of the place became about how it feels to travel over those particular unkempt surfaces in an 87 Toyota pickup.
The project classifies my experience of Grove Park in terms of the way I got to know it, through magnitude and transmission of vibration into line rather than through spatial representations or delineation through words. While in words I would classify the experience as regressive, phenomenological, non-linguistic, raw, tactile, the paintings refute the neccessity for words and classify in an alternative way, according to the fluxuations of moving over surfaces.
Non Reflection. Text Only. Free Information. The River. The Group.
Socrates asks us to imagine a line divided into two parts. The larger part (segment CE) represents the intelligible world and the smaller (segment AC), the visible world. Then, he says, imagine each part of the line further divided in the same ratio as the first division. The divisions in the segment for the intelligible world represent higher (DE) and lower (CD) forms, respectively. Moreover, the divisions in the segment for the visible world represent ordinary visible objects (BC), on the one hand, and their shadows, reflections, and other representations (AB), on the other.
Alison's Reflection on the Group Installation
Bringing together documentation, memories, thoughts, and reflections about our Withlacoochee River kayak experience forced the seminar group to address some questions about the reality, authenticity, value, and kind of places and river systems we had entered in little plastic boats on a hot, blinding sunny Florida day. We began to reflect both on sensations and divisions: both on phenomenology--our bodies on the river, and ways of classifying our experiences through image, memory, conceptualization, and translation. Personally, I found myself floating somewhere between a total body immersion and a cognitive criticality of the various intersecting systems of the river and its surroundings.
I began to think about the difference between that day, in which I had spent several hours frying in the sun, feeling the motion of the waves, staring across a blinding and reflected sun--in essence allowing myself to be carried along, as a living body on a predetermined and highly controlled flow of water systems--and the very different experience of talking about it later. Discussions as a group revealed that such a response seemed fairly universal, though our ways of translating the paradoxical response were varied, almost at odds. We were staring at the sun--on this we could agree-and that our experiences on the river or reflected upon it later, while all valid, varied between and within ourselves in their degree of reality, authenticity, and the degree to which we could share them or what we could know about them. Jeremy looked to Plato to help us think about existence as a simultaneity of variously trustworthy, authentic, valid, or real objects, phenomena, and experiences. From here we could all adopt a gereralized approach to making an installation by thinking along lines of division, light, and the different layers of our experiences.
'Division,' in terms of this project functions on a literal level as the relationship between the river, its bank, and the land, or the river between two areas of land; it also functions as the line between light and shadow, the kayak between our bodies and our surroundings, the surface line between water and air, the horizon line...and metaphorically, the boundary lines between the bodies or minds of individuals, the line between us and our environment, between the native and non-native species and objects, between the folks of Yankeetown and us, as tourists...between what is natural and constructed, organic and controlled...and also, the line between thinking the experiences and the experiences themselves. As I started to think about these thigns, I also started to realize that, despite my feeling of immersion and the ease with which I gave myself to the affectation of the sensual experience, that within that unity there lies a series of fragmentations, limits, contradictions, and divisions. It seems as if the polarities unify the experience.
Abstractly, I think of the line as the divider; a murky, dynamic, dark, unknowable space between spaces. Lines isolate us, they leave a gap of untranslatability, a place where language can't go, through which we float, waiting to emerge from the dark into the light. While these thoughts are not totally in conflict with Plato, he uses the line as an illustrative device. Plato divides the line itself as a way of demonstrating what we can know, what is universal about that knowledge, how real or true different ways of knowing are.
So how do we combine the idea of the line as divider with the idea of line as the device that can bring all the parts of the division into union? How do we divide the divider to end up with something that holds together?
Installation: line is represented as a fragmented and mediated river, or that day that joined our experience of it, or the sun that penetrated us all; the moving line of reality which we can metaphorically look out from...we were six moving points--blinded eyes, working arms, burning skin, thirsty mouths, ears buzzing--on that line, six condensations of various kinds of knowledges...six divisions of an already complexly divided entity, and we process our six experiences of the same things in a single space through six aesthetics--in a layered and refracted environment we let it all overlap and interplay. Our combinations overwhelm, like the contradiction between experience and translation, phenomena and ideas, nature and technology, organic and synthetic, reality and representation--we unify through affect and reference, we divide through representation. We are forced to confront the mediation and overlap of commodity, nature, old and current technologies, representations, objects, light. We can enter the installation on different levels of reality and division, or we can identify the lines that tie the experience together. We find ourselves staring at the light, reflected, translated, captured, and divided in the unity of different layers of reality, experience, and memory.
I began to think about the difference between that day, in which I had spent several hours frying in the sun, feeling the motion of the waves, staring across a blinding and reflected sun--in essence allowing myself to be carried along, as a living body on a predetermined and highly controlled flow of water systems--and the very different experience of talking about it later. Discussions as a group revealed that such a response seemed fairly universal, though our ways of translating the paradoxical response were varied, almost at odds. We were staring at the sun--on this we could agree-and that our experiences on the river or reflected upon it later, while all valid, varied between and within ourselves in their degree of reality, authenticity, and the degree to which we could share them or what we could know about them. Jeremy looked to Plato to help us think about existence as a simultaneity of variously trustworthy, authentic, valid, or real objects, phenomena, and experiences. From here we could all adopt a gereralized approach to making an installation by thinking along lines of division, light, and the different layers of our experiences.
'Division,' in terms of this project functions on a literal level as the relationship between the river, its bank, and the land, or the river between two areas of land; it also functions as the line between light and shadow, the kayak between our bodies and our surroundings, the surface line between water and air, the horizon line...and metaphorically, the boundary lines between the bodies or minds of individuals, the line between us and our environment, between the native and non-native species and objects, between the folks of Yankeetown and us, as tourists...between what is natural and constructed, organic and controlled...and also, the line between thinking the experiences and the experiences themselves. As I started to think about these thigns, I also started to realize that, despite my feeling of immersion and the ease with which I gave myself to the affectation of the sensual experience, that within that unity there lies a series of fragmentations, limits, contradictions, and divisions. It seems as if the polarities unify the experience.
Abstractly, I think of the line as the divider; a murky, dynamic, dark, unknowable space between spaces. Lines isolate us, they leave a gap of untranslatability, a place where language can't go, through which we float, waiting to emerge from the dark into the light. While these thoughts are not totally in conflict with Plato, he uses the line as an illustrative device. Plato divides the line itself as a way of demonstrating what we can know, what is universal about that knowledge, how real or true different ways of knowing are.
So how do we combine the idea of the line as divider with the idea of line as the device that can bring all the parts of the division into union? How do we divide the divider to end up with something that holds together?
Installation: line is represented as a fragmented and mediated river, or that day that joined our experience of it, or the sun that penetrated us all; the moving line of reality which we can metaphorically look out from...we were six moving points--blinded eyes, working arms, burning skin, thirsty mouths, ears buzzing--on that line, six condensations of various kinds of knowledges...six divisions of an already complexly divided entity, and we process our six experiences of the same things in a single space through six aesthetics--in a layered and refracted environment we let it all overlap and interplay. Our combinations overwhelm, like the contradiction between experience and translation, phenomena and ideas, nature and technology, organic and synthetic, reality and representation--we unify through affect and reference, we divide through representation. We are forced to confront the mediation and overlap of commodity, nature, old and current technologies, representations, objects, light. We can enter the installation on different levels of reality and division, or we can identify the lines that tie the experience together. We find ourselves staring at the light, reflected, translated, captured, and divided in the unity of different layers of reality, experience, and memory.
images
A few stills of my piece trying it's very best to fit in with the group installation. My idea was rather odd in that I focused on the save yankee town signs. I found that of course many many towns are wanting to be saved in America not just Yankeetown. I combined this thought with a commercial clothing display(American Apparel) since most of these causes have t-shirts or bumber stickers asking for help or raisng awareness. I thought about how futile this often is and how the sales pitch often is an exageration of reality. So the display on the rack shows the apparel with text like "save our town" " save our shoreline" Save Yankeetown". The clothes themselves don't have the text nor do we look like the models.
http://plaza.ufl.edu/mchristo/images/index.htm
http://plaza.ufl.edu/mchristo/images/index.htm
pics
/Volumes/CANON_DC/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_0681.JPG/Volumes/CANON_DC/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_0680.JPG/Volumes/CANON_DC/DCIM/100CANON/IMG_0687.JPG
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
invasive species
- The space where objects, light, and video intersect - the metaphor of layering runs deep, including everything from our actual trip to the final method of construction. The other profound and interesting metaphor was the use of projections which mimics the function of stereotype. we are invasive species.
Withlacoochee Installation
Flickr photoset.
The idea I came to this piece with was that of edges. During my trip down the Withlacoochee I paid the most attention to the boundary between the water and the land. In some places it was overwhelmingly natural, with trees eroding into the river, and palms bending far out as the banks shrank underneath them. Other areas were the exact opposite, with huge stone, wood and concrete embankments holding the shoreline static. The most compelling areas were where these two extremes came into direct contact. Areas that had man-made structures being undermined and broken down by the natural flux of the banks.
The video piece I brought to the installation was an exploration of this bank/river interaction. I had ideas of how I'd like it to be projected, but nothing concrete in mind. Inside the space, the installation evolved, and my projection was scattered throughout the room, reflected and fragmented. Both the angles it attained and its seemingly sourceless origin worked towards the effect of reflected sunlight off rippling water. Illuminating and interacting with the various walls and objects, the entire installation came to be about edges from my perception. My work on the border between land and water, the border between the natural and man-made, between earth and sky.
Though we all came at this project from different angles, it is the interaction and accommodation of each-other's ideas during the installation process that enabled it to come together as a whole. The installation was not about any individual component, but rather their interaction, both in physical space, and the conceptual content as it eddied around the varying viewpoints brought to the work by each participant. When It was completed, I remarked that all I would need is a kayak, and I'd feel like I was paddling down the Withlacoochee again. From the amalgamation of the different takes on the same trip, the experience was re-synthesized.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Grove Park Project
Classifying Grove Park: Myth & Legend:Legend & Myth
The following investigation explores the interconnected nature of classification as myth or legend. Questioning the idea of how we classify, the project aversively implies a legend through the fictitious nature of trying to classify the myth of intervening entities.
The following investigation explores the interconnected nature of classification as myth or legend. Questioning the idea of how we classify, the project aversively implies a legend through the fictitious nature of trying to classify the myth of intervening entities.
Monday, April 30, 2007
At Stake
I finished my last sketch this morning.
I went to Michael's Craft Store, bought wood-blocks
and burned my ideas into them.
My idea stems from tourism and
generic representations of ideologies
:: symbol reduction...I focused
as a tourist on the Withlacoochie.
I depict towering images that claim the
space they are in, like the way a flag or a stake,
or a tourist claims their space in foreign
territory...
i enjoy seeing how nature eventually reclaims everything
man-made and our connection working with nature
for entertainment - i also had an interesting thought today
about the way we perceive man-made things as not
being of nature.
- kat
I went to Michael's Craft Store, bought wood-blocks
and burned my ideas into them.
My idea stems from tourism and
generic representations of ideologies
:: symbol reduction...I focused
as a tourist on the Withlacoochie.
I depict towering images that claim the
space they are in, like the way a flag or a stake,
or a tourist claims their space in foreign
territory...
i enjoy seeing how nature eventually reclaims everything
man-made and our connection working with nature
for entertainment - i also had an interesting thought today
about the way we perceive man-made things as not
being of nature.
- kat
Edges
My idea for the installation is a video piece dealing with the flux I noticed around the edge of the river. I'd like the projection to occur at the corner between the wall and the ground, but I'm not sure whether having a single projector for the whole piece or two separate projectors (one ground, one wall) would work better. The "shore" imagery is assembled from various man-made structures in states of decay photographed along the river, commenting on both our tenuous hold on the shifting banks, and the temporary nature of the banks themselves. The water is a stylized take on the interconnected ripple reflections as captured in a few of my images and Alison's videos. The entire piece will be on a loop, the constant motion reflecting the changing boundary between water and land, man-made and natural. I'm starting to think two separate projections would work better, as I can make them of different lengths, so that they loop asynchronously creating a piece of longer duration and better representing flux.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
group project stuffs
hey guys,
tell me what you think like if this too salon or too lame to bring to our "environment", but i was going to make a painting that sort of illustrates the main issue that i was interested in, which was the interconnection of wild nature and "man-made" industry. I found this image of these ducks that are like "rafting" down a river on a big tire. so i was going to paint that and hang the painting up on one of the walls, or we could even prop it up on the ground. i was also thinking of bringing domestic outdoors stuff--potted plants, maybe some plant stands, strings of lights, windchimes. i thought it would be interesting to use these goods that we buy and consume so that we can comfortably interact with nature. do people think this sounds like it will work with what they need to do? anyone have any suggestions for me?
tell me what you think like if this too salon or too lame to bring to our "environment", but i was going to make a painting that sort of illustrates the main issue that i was interested in, which was the interconnection of wild nature and "man-made" industry. I found this image of these ducks that are like "rafting" down a river on a big tire. so i was going to paint that and hang the painting up on one of the walls, or we could even prop it up on the ground. i was also thinking of bringing domestic outdoors stuff--potted plants, maybe some plant stands, strings of lights, windchimes. i thought it would be interesting to use these goods that we buy and consume so that we can comfortably interact with nature. do people think this sounds like it will work with what they need to do? anyone have any suggestions for me?
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Haeckel
"Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was the German scientist who coined the phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and the terms "Darwinism" and "ecology." He was first to postulate a "missing link" between ape and man and was proven correct when Java man was found in 1891. A staunch evolutionary biologist, Haeckel put Darwin on the world map. His books and monographs, placing Darwin in a broad social and philosophical context, were circulated internationally; they outsold On the Origin of Species by a large margin. Haeckel was commonly referred to as "the Darwin of Germany."
Haeckel was also an accomplished artist. His idol was Goethe, who maintained that art as well as science could unearth the underlying truths of nature. For both Goethe and Haeckel, morphology had aesthetic roots. Haeckel traveled far and wide, from Sicily to Ceylon, to the North Sea, and beyond. Sketchpads and watercolors accompanied his microscope wherever he went. His on-the-spot drawings of deep-sea vegetation, aquatic creatures, frogs, birds, and higher animals were turned into more than 1000 engravings. From this treasure trove, a selection of 100 colored lithographs were produced for publication in his 1904 Kunstformen der Natur. This work is considered one of the marvels of 19th century naturalist illustration. With their sinuous lines and tendency to idealize nature, these drawings are also considered a forerunner of the Art Nouveau movement. Indeed Haeckel's most lasting legacy may lie in the field of art. In science, where artistic license is often called fraud, Haeckel's reputation was sorely tarnished
This exhibition presents a selection of digitized reproductions of the remarkable illustrations in the two volume Art Forms in Nature. They have been culled from the holdings of the rare book collection of the MBLWHOI Library."
"Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was the German scientist who coined the phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" and the terms "Darwinism" and "ecology." He was first to postulate a "missing link" between ape and man and was proven correct when Java man was found in 1891. A staunch evolutionary biologist, Haeckel put Darwin on the world map. His books and monographs, placing Darwin in a broad social and philosophical context, were circulated internationally; they outsold On the Origin of Species by a large margin. Haeckel was commonly referred to as "the Darwin of Germany."
Haeckel was also an accomplished artist. His idol was Goethe, who maintained that art as well as science could unearth the underlying truths of nature. For both Goethe and Haeckel, morphology had aesthetic roots. Haeckel traveled far and wide, from Sicily to Ceylon, to the North Sea, and beyond. Sketchpads and watercolors accompanied his microscope wherever he went. His on-the-spot drawings of deep-sea vegetation, aquatic creatures, frogs, birds, and higher animals were turned into more than 1000 engravings. From this treasure trove, a selection of 100 colored lithographs were produced for publication in his 1904 Kunstformen der Natur. This work is considered one of the marvels of 19th century naturalist illustration. With their sinuous lines and tendency to idealize nature, these drawings are also considered a forerunner of the Art Nouveau movement. Indeed Haeckel's most lasting legacy may lie in the field of art. In science, where artistic license is often called fraud, Haeckel's reputation was sorely tarnished
This exhibition presents a selection of digitized reproductions of the remarkable illustrations in the two volume Art Forms in Nature. They have been culled from the holdings of the rare book collection of the MBLWHOI Library."
Monday, April 23, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Earth Documentary
i was watching the planet earth series this weekend - the new discovery channel's attempt to document nature in a way never seen before! it was unbelievable. i found myself completely captivated by the beautiful cinematography and the sheer wonder of all the effort that went into making the programs.
Looking back and analyzing the show, Oprah says you have to see it of course, i think of all the small places they didn't film and the way we, as humans, tend to focus on the spectacle of nature as a bounty and mass. Why do these things captivate us so?
i remember seeing masses as a common theme - herds of bison, flocks of millions of birds, a bountiful aquatic eco-system chock full of animals - and the other theme was vastness to point out the contrast between the bounty - so, tons of bison, but on a vast prarie, millions of birds, on an African plain...
Earth
- kat
Looking back and analyzing the show, Oprah says you have to see it of course, i think of all the small places they didn't film and the way we, as humans, tend to focus on the spectacle of nature as a bounty and mass. Why do these things captivate us so?
i remember seeing masses as a common theme - herds of bison, flocks of millions of birds, a bountiful aquatic eco-system chock full of animals - and the other theme was vastness to point out the contrast between the bounty - so, tons of bison, but on a vast prarie, millions of birds, on an African plain...
Earth
- kat
Thursday, April 05, 2007
River Project Links-Ecosystems
The best way to convey the specifics of this info. is thru some of the better links I found, since the ecosystems cover about 160 miles of river, and we will be paddling through areas that are numerous and some of the most diverse (Florida is a "hot spot" for biodiversity!). But in general: Ecosystems include living and non-living entities and factors, including hydrology, soils, geology, plants and microorganisms, animal life (reptiles, fish, birds, amphibians, and mammals), human impact, and climatic factors. Generally, we will be exploring river and spring (Rainbow Springs) ecosystems, which are freshwater aquatic systems. However, we will also be near the Gulf (Yankeetown), which would include brackish water (higher levels of salt), in marshes, near or in Withlacoochee Swamp and Green Swamp, in channels (Barge Canal), and in dammed areas and other lake systems (Apopka Lake, Lake Panasoffkee). Alongside the river, we will also pass through a number of terrestrial (forest) ecolsystems, including cypress and hardwood swamp, upland hardwood and pine flatwood forests, cypress domes (pond), palmetto hammocks and landscaped backyards, as well as scrub, sandhills, and mangrove, among others. Specifically, some of these areas are designated as Richloam Wildlife Management Area and Withlacoochee State Forest
Some important factors in Florida ecology in general:
Humans have been modifying the ecology for 10,000 years in largely sustainable ways up until the 20th century. Obviously, our interactions currently are not sustainable, so any talk about Florida ecosystems must now navigate this complex issue, which involves discussions centered on deforestation, wetland drainage, agriculture, and rapid urbanization. Water issues tend to be the focus of Florida ecosystems, and are considered preciously diverse necessities, that are somewhat fragile and susceptible to broad geographical areas and populations. Florida ecosystems are home to a disproportionate amount of species that aren't anywhere else. One interesting ecosystem issue (anywhere, perhaps) is that human impact (since the Europeans came) has been so thorough that it is difficult to discern the specifics of what the natural ecosystems are, since alterations, impacts, and non-native species are such a huge part of the ecosystems we try to isolate and map. Thus, in talking about ecosystems, a large portion of the discussion is on losses, conservation, protection, and restoration. The most controversial part of this, to me, is this last idea of restoration-in other words, further human control over ecosystems to return them to a previous state, one which involves ideas of the "natural," we may not be able to even discern at this point. I think our trip down the river will illustrate this point: humans and their developments are integrated into the ecosystems so thoroughly that it is not possible to know them apart from our presence. Is this painfully obvious? When we think about 'ecosystems,' my impression is that we divide environments from ourselves, the natural from the human, which we talked about with the "Wilderness" essay. When we imagine seeing the thriving river life in the shadow of the nuclear plant, there is a total disconnect, yet how can we even imagine what the river would be without the human 'fingerprints' all over it?
I guess as an ecological departure point for this project, one idea I would suggest is to think about these tensions and contradictions that exist between ideas about the 'natural,' the 'preserved and managed,' and the 'restored.' Yet, I am inclined, despite these contradictions, to emphasize the importance of the Florida ecosystems that are discernible on our trip and discussed everywhere--that there is a rapid decline in quality and diversity, that there are huge repercussions for our impact--and I would say I do respond to a pervasive sense of immediacy and loss associated with both the irresponsible behaviors and sometimes even the mere presence of the human species amidst ecosystems that we seem so different than. So, can we think about these issues along the divide of native and non-native species, both of which have some thriving and some weak, eliminated, or dwindling species...which do we consider ourselves, in terms of social and environmental ecosystems, a native or a non-native in the river ecosystems?
http://webworld.freac.fsu.edu/eco/index.html
Florida ecosystems.
Many of these ecosystems apply to the areas we will be in, but if we are to focus on the water, look at "Freshwater Wetlands and Aquatic Ecosystems;"
focus on rivers and springs.
Includes lists of plants, , topology, vegetation, fauna, abiotic factors, human impacts, as well as images and descriptions of wildlife and plants
http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Ecosystems/Swamps/swamps.html
Forest Ecology
deals more with the land ecosystems, many of which we will cross but not explore.
swamp info may be especially relevant
This site also includes wildlife page that lists reptiles, mammals, and birds of the various forest ecosystems
Florida defenders of the environment website on the Withlacoochee River Basin, including more info. on demographics, algae, impact, projects, purposes, statistics, etcetcetc than you want to know...
http://www.fladefenders.org/WRB_links.html (projects, research, etc)
http://www.fladefenders.org/WithlacoocheeRiver.html (River homepg)
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/guide/natplant.html -thorough, great site on FL Water Plant Management
http://www.wgcu.org/fllandscape/plant_directory.asp
Florida Plants, including native and non-natives, separated, described, imaged. A thorough and usable site.
Cross-Florida canal
http://fl.water.usgs.gov/Abstracts/wri_1_73_faulkner.html
Some important factors in Florida ecology in general:
Humans have been modifying the ecology for 10,000 years in largely sustainable ways up until the 20th century. Obviously, our interactions currently are not sustainable, so any talk about Florida ecosystems must now navigate this complex issue, which involves discussions centered on deforestation, wetland drainage, agriculture, and rapid urbanization. Water issues tend to be the focus of Florida ecosystems, and are considered preciously diverse necessities, that are somewhat fragile and susceptible to broad geographical areas and populations. Florida ecosystems are home to a disproportionate amount of species that aren't anywhere else. One interesting ecosystem issue (anywhere, perhaps) is that human impact (since the Europeans came) has been so thorough that it is difficult to discern the specifics of what the natural ecosystems are, since alterations, impacts, and non-native species are such a huge part of the ecosystems we try to isolate and map. Thus, in talking about ecosystems, a large portion of the discussion is on losses, conservation, protection, and restoration. The most controversial part of this, to me, is this last idea of restoration-in other words, further human control over ecosystems to return them to a previous state, one which involves ideas of the "natural," we may not be able to even discern at this point. I think our trip down the river will illustrate this point: humans and their developments are integrated into the ecosystems so thoroughly that it is not possible to know them apart from our presence. Is this painfully obvious? When we think about 'ecosystems,' my impression is that we divide environments from ourselves, the natural from the human, which we talked about with the "Wilderness" essay. When we imagine seeing the thriving river life in the shadow of the nuclear plant, there is a total disconnect, yet how can we even imagine what the river would be without the human 'fingerprints' all over it?
I guess as an ecological departure point for this project, one idea I would suggest is to think about these tensions and contradictions that exist between ideas about the 'natural,' the 'preserved and managed,' and the 'restored.' Yet, I am inclined, despite these contradictions, to emphasize the importance of the Florida ecosystems that are discernible on our trip and discussed everywhere--that there is a rapid decline in quality and diversity, that there are huge repercussions for our impact--and I would say I do respond to a pervasive sense of immediacy and loss associated with both the irresponsible behaviors and sometimes even the mere presence of the human species amidst ecosystems that we seem so different than. So, can we think about these issues along the divide of native and non-native species, both of which have some thriving and some weak, eliminated, or dwindling species...which do we consider ourselves, in terms of social and environmental ecosystems, a native or a non-native in the river ecosystems?
http://webworld.freac.fsu.edu/eco/index.html
Florida ecosystems.
Many of these ecosystems apply to the areas we will be in, but if we are to focus on the water, look at "Freshwater Wetlands and Aquatic Ecosystems;"
focus on rivers and springs.
Includes lists of plants, , topology, vegetation, fauna, abiotic factors, human impacts, as well as images and descriptions of wildlife and plants
http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Ecosystems/Swamps/swamps.html
Forest Ecology
deals more with the land ecosystems, many of which we will cross but not explore.
swamp info may be especially relevant
This site also includes wildlife page that lists reptiles, mammals, and birds of the various forest ecosystems
Florida defenders of the environment website on the Withlacoochee River Basin, including more info. on demographics, algae, impact, projects, purposes, statistics, etcetcetc than you want to know...
http://www.fladefenders.org/WRB_links.html (projects, research, etc)
http://www.fladefenders.org/WithlacoocheeRiver.html (River homepg)
http://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/guide/natplant.html -thorough, great site on FL Water Plant Management
http://www.wgcu.org/fllandscape/plant_directory.asp
Florida Plants, including native and non-natives, separated, described, imaged. A thorough and usable site.
Cross-Florida canal
http://fl.water.usgs.gov/Abstracts/wri_1_73_faulkner.html
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Grove Park Project
My piece deals with how all systems of categorization are purely human constructs, whereas life exists as a continuum and an infinitely interconnected symbiosis.
Piece constructed as a Flash animation. ~10 Mb.
Piece constructed as a Flash animation. ~10 Mb.
teilhard
Looking at the beginning sections in "The Stuff f the Universe," we noted the significance of the linguistic designations as an over-arching metaphor for spirituality, God, and systematic order. These metaphors were created through Teihard's development of a scientific model based around terms that are expanded from a traditional scientific model, one which could be described as a closed-system, such as the atom used to be percieved. Teihard's choice of language rather designates physical, though often invisible or phenomenal, connections between microcosm and macrocosm to demonstrate a systematic unity of entities both big and small, interior and exterior, spiritual and physical, scientific and poetic.
Interesting Letter.
saveyankeetown.com
To the People of Yankeetown,
My name is A. Frank Knotts. My parents, Eugene and Norma, named me after my father's uncle, the founder of Yankeetown who chose to go by "A. F." rather than his full name, "Armanis Francis" (I owe my parents for not tagging me with the original moniker.). The Izaak Walton Lodge was my home from August 1926 until August 1942 when I went off to college and never came back except to visit. I have a lot of memories of early Yankeetown, many of them childish of course, but also I have some bits of history which I picked up along the way. In my old age (80) I'd like to share with any of you who are interested.
But first, let me tell you of my admiration for the whole pack of you rebels, you grass roots activists, you rabble-rousers, you lovely people who rose to the occasion and have done so much toward saving Yankeetown. So often little communities just succumb to the march of "progress" which usually comes on like a bulldozer and destroys the very essence of what it claims to "develop." It happens here in Colorado every day. Just last week I read that a developer wants to move into one of our rural counties, Elbert County, and increase the number of dwellings by seventy percent in one fell swoop.
I believe that you guys may become one of the real success stories which so rarely happen. Hang in there and keep up the good work.
I would have missed your story had not my wife, Linda Powers discovered it. She followed the developments pretty avidly, and she encouraged my interest and now my involvement. In other words, she really got caught up in the story, and I am very grateful that she did. This story shouldn't be missed.
Also, I really believe that Andrew deserves a whole lot of credit for creating the website, and more important, for maintaining it and doing a nice job of maintaining order. It appears to me that this website is the modern equivalent of the town square. In Yankeetown, in the old days, the "town square" used to be the front porch of the old post office which sat just north of the Lodge. The mail man used to arrive from Dunnellon every morning at some time between ten and twelve depending on how late the train, The Southland, happened to be on any particular day, Meanwhile, all the retired men (a big chunk of the population at that time were retired people) would gather around mid-morning and sit along the edge of the porch which ran between the post office and Uncle Bud's Store just to the east. If you have seen my brother Tom's book, you may also have seen a picture of one of those daily meetings. I took that shot with my little $l.39 brownie in about 1935 or 36. These guys discussed all sorts of things, but, unlike you with your website, they seldom if ever did much about it as far as I know. Maybe they weren't disgruntled about anything. Sure, there was griping, but griping without a focal concern or any concerted action. They probably talked about the weather and told fish tales. Anyhow, that was pretty much the town forum then.
Now, the question: what might you present-day warriors like to know about that I might be able to recall? I have an idea of how to figure that out. I can pick a couple of topics that seem sort of relevant to both then and now and offer them up. Maybe that will elicit some thoughts and questions in you current residents, and you could post them on the site for me. I will do my best to tell you what I may know. I promise not to make anything up nor tell any lies. But realize, I pretty much left town in l942 and have only hearsay knowledge after that. And I might add that my recall of events before 1928 is pretty flimsy, so those will be hearsay, too.
I'll start with one question that someone already has asked: WHAT WOULD A. F. AND EUGENE KNOTTS HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT? I know how they thought and I feel sure that I know the answer to that one; they would not have liked it. Notice that Uncle A. F. was a long-time member of the Izaak Walton League and they named the lodge accordingly. The League was perhaps the leading conservationist organization in the country at that time. It was dedicated to preserving all kinds of habitat in order to preserve fish and game for hunters, sort of on the order of Ducks Unlimited or Trout Unlimited today. For all I know, the Izaak Walton League may still exist. Someone with Internet access could easily find out. Izaak himself was a seventeenth century English writer and fisherman who wrote "The Compleat Angler." Uncle A. F. was an avid hunter and trapper all his life and his major attraction to the Withlacoochee area was for its wilderness and for the hunting. Dad, Eugene, loved the fishing. Yes, A. F. was definitely a developer, and he also had some slightly grand plans, such as the Cross Florida Canal. But he envisioned the canal well to the south of the Withlacoochee in order to preserve the river. He wanted to live in a small residential community with only the basic amenities and a rustic atmosphere. Also, he had a pretty healthy ego and liked being the Big Frog in the small pond. My dad, Eugene, also strove to keep things simple. Yes, he did one development, River Forest, but made sure that it had minimal impact on the environment. And, in his later years I heard him deplore that things weren't as natural and simple as when he came in 1923. Both A. F. and Gene placed high value on community, on their community. Dad, especially valued citizen participation. I have no doubt they would be for saving Yankeetown. They always were. I just remembered something. In the middle of the depression Dad was feeling the pinch really hard, trying to keep the Lodge on a profitable basis. Then one of the frequent guests at the Lodge, a businessman from Orlando, offered Dad a pretty attractive job in his business. I watched Dad agonize for two or three weeks, and then he said, "I can't give up living in Yankeetown and having the river and the gulf and the town to live in a city." Orlando probably had about ten or twelve thousand population then! City?
Now for a couple of more or less random recollections which the website triggered. The first was the posting by Johnny Young's family. I hadn't thought of Johnny in many years, and then after the posting it started to come back. I first met Johnny when I entered school as a first-grader at the old two-room schoolhouse on the north side of Riverside Drive about a hundred yards east of the old post office. It had grades one through four in one room and five through eight in the other with one teacher per room. I liked Johnny right away. He was always so friendly and seemed so comfortable just being himself. His whole presence made me want to be around him. He had such a nice smile and he seemed totally comfortable and happy to be with others while I felt socially awkward. Also, I envied his comfortable way of dressing. He got to go barefoot while I had to wear the cute little sandals that my mother and grandmother insisted on. He got to wear denim bib overalls, like most of the kids, while I had to wear what I regarded as prissy little shorts and knit shirts. Johnny didn't even have to wear a shirt unless it got cold. I felt like an outsider, set apart. And I was. In the end I only got to hang around Johnny from time to time at that old school. We were separated by two or three years (a lot at that time of life) and we came from different parts of early Yankeetown society. I guess that's life, the stupid things which can get in the way of normal human impulses to affiliate.
A second entry which rang a bell came from Miss Jones, daughter of Elton Jones, the first principal of the new school, the big rock building on State Road 40. Sorry, I don't remember her given name because my dad always called her "Beanie." That requires a little explanation. When she was two years old, her family used to come to the Lodge on Sunday afternoons to visit. And Dad had a lot of plants growing all along the long concrete porch which connected the two buildings of the original Lodge. Some of the plants would shed little pea-like seeds which were completely fascinating to a two-year-old girl, and she spent a whole lot of her time collecting them. Good to know where you are now, 'Beanie.'
Well, I think it's time to stop for now and ask for feedback. Does anyone have questions that a former Yankeetown kid might be able to respond to? I can try to answer, though not with lightning speed.
A. Frank Knotts
To the People of Yankeetown,
My name is A. Frank Knotts. My parents, Eugene and Norma, named me after my father's uncle, the founder of Yankeetown who chose to go by "A. F." rather than his full name, "Armanis Francis" (I owe my parents for not tagging me with the original moniker.). The Izaak Walton Lodge was my home from August 1926 until August 1942 when I went off to college and never came back except to visit. I have a lot of memories of early Yankeetown, many of them childish of course, but also I have some bits of history which I picked up along the way. In my old age (80) I'd like to share with any of you who are interested.
But first, let me tell you of my admiration for the whole pack of you rebels, you grass roots activists, you rabble-rousers, you lovely people who rose to the occasion and have done so much toward saving Yankeetown. So often little communities just succumb to the march of "progress" which usually comes on like a bulldozer and destroys the very essence of what it claims to "develop." It happens here in Colorado every day. Just last week I read that a developer wants to move into one of our rural counties, Elbert County, and increase the number of dwellings by seventy percent in one fell swoop.
I believe that you guys may become one of the real success stories which so rarely happen. Hang in there and keep up the good work.
I would have missed your story had not my wife, Linda Powers discovered it. She followed the developments pretty avidly, and she encouraged my interest and now my involvement. In other words, she really got caught up in the story, and I am very grateful that she did. This story shouldn't be missed.
Also, I really believe that Andrew deserves a whole lot of credit for creating the website, and more important, for maintaining it and doing a nice job of maintaining order. It appears to me that this website is the modern equivalent of the town square. In Yankeetown, in the old days, the "town square" used to be the front porch of the old post office which sat just north of the Lodge. The mail man used to arrive from Dunnellon every morning at some time between ten and twelve depending on how late the train, The Southland, happened to be on any particular day, Meanwhile, all the retired men (a big chunk of the population at that time were retired people) would gather around mid-morning and sit along the edge of the porch which ran between the post office and Uncle Bud's Store just to the east. If you have seen my brother Tom's book, you may also have seen a picture of one of those daily meetings. I took that shot with my little $l.39 brownie in about 1935 or 36. These guys discussed all sorts of things, but, unlike you with your website, they seldom if ever did much about it as far as I know. Maybe they weren't disgruntled about anything. Sure, there was griping, but griping without a focal concern or any concerted action. They probably talked about the weather and told fish tales. Anyhow, that was pretty much the town forum then.
Now, the question: what might you present-day warriors like to know about that I might be able to recall? I have an idea of how to figure that out. I can pick a couple of topics that seem sort of relevant to both then and now and offer them up. Maybe that will elicit some thoughts and questions in you current residents, and you could post them on the site for me. I will do my best to tell you what I may know. I promise not to make anything up nor tell any lies. But realize, I pretty much left town in l942 and have only hearsay knowledge after that. And I might add that my recall of events before 1928 is pretty flimsy, so those will be hearsay, too.
I'll start with one question that someone already has asked: WHAT WOULD A. F. AND EUGENE KNOTTS HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT? I know how they thought and I feel sure that I know the answer to that one; they would not have liked it. Notice that Uncle A. F. was a long-time member of the Izaak Walton League and they named the lodge accordingly. The League was perhaps the leading conservationist organization in the country at that time. It was dedicated to preserving all kinds of habitat in order to preserve fish and game for hunters, sort of on the order of Ducks Unlimited or Trout Unlimited today. For all I know, the Izaak Walton League may still exist. Someone with Internet access could easily find out. Izaak himself was a seventeenth century English writer and fisherman who wrote "The Compleat Angler." Uncle A. F. was an avid hunter and trapper all his life and his major attraction to the Withlacoochee area was for its wilderness and for the hunting. Dad, Eugene, loved the fishing. Yes, A. F. was definitely a developer, and he also had some slightly grand plans, such as the Cross Florida Canal. But he envisioned the canal well to the south of the Withlacoochee in order to preserve the river. He wanted to live in a small residential community with only the basic amenities and a rustic atmosphere. Also, he had a pretty healthy ego and liked being the Big Frog in the small pond. My dad, Eugene, also strove to keep things simple. Yes, he did one development, River Forest, but made sure that it had minimal impact on the environment. And, in his later years I heard him deplore that things weren't as natural and simple as when he came in 1923. Both A. F. and Gene placed high value on community, on their community. Dad, especially valued citizen participation. I have no doubt they would be for saving Yankeetown. They always were. I just remembered something. In the middle of the depression Dad was feeling the pinch really hard, trying to keep the Lodge on a profitable basis. Then one of the frequent guests at the Lodge, a businessman from Orlando, offered Dad a pretty attractive job in his business. I watched Dad agonize for two or three weeks, and then he said, "I can't give up living in Yankeetown and having the river and the gulf and the town to live in a city." Orlando probably had about ten or twelve thousand population then! City?
Now for a couple of more or less random recollections which the website triggered. The first was the posting by Johnny Young's family. I hadn't thought of Johnny in many years, and then after the posting it started to come back. I first met Johnny when I entered school as a first-grader at the old two-room schoolhouse on the north side of Riverside Drive about a hundred yards east of the old post office. It had grades one through four in one room and five through eight in the other with one teacher per room. I liked Johnny right away. He was always so friendly and seemed so comfortable just being himself. His whole presence made me want to be around him. He had such a nice smile and he seemed totally comfortable and happy to be with others while I felt socially awkward. Also, I envied his comfortable way of dressing. He got to go barefoot while I had to wear the cute little sandals that my mother and grandmother insisted on. He got to wear denim bib overalls, like most of the kids, while I had to wear what I regarded as prissy little shorts and knit shirts. Johnny didn't even have to wear a shirt unless it got cold. I felt like an outsider, set apart. And I was. In the end I only got to hang around Johnny from time to time at that old school. We were separated by two or three years (a lot at that time of life) and we came from different parts of early Yankeetown society. I guess that's life, the stupid things which can get in the way of normal human impulses to affiliate.
A second entry which rang a bell came from Miss Jones, daughter of Elton Jones, the first principal of the new school, the big rock building on State Road 40. Sorry, I don't remember her given name because my dad always called her "Beanie." That requires a little explanation. When she was two years old, her family used to come to the Lodge on Sunday afternoons to visit. And Dad had a lot of plants growing all along the long concrete porch which connected the two buildings of the original Lodge. Some of the plants would shed little pea-like seeds which were completely fascinating to a two-year-old girl, and she spent a whole lot of her time collecting them. Good to know where you are now, 'Beanie.'
Well, I think it's time to stop for now and ask for feedback. Does anyone have questions that a former Yankeetown kid might be able to respond to? I can try to answer, though not with lightning speed.
A. Frank Knotts
PLANT-LIFE on the Lower Withlacoochee River
Indigenouse Aquatic Life: pondweed, widgeaon-grass, arrowhead, manatee grass, turtle grass, eel grass
Along the river, the logging industry controls much of the terrestrial plant life.
Shorelands or Riparian areas are the thin strips of land along waterways, reservoirs, coastlines where sub-surface moisture is present. The are great “transition zones” where land and water meet to form highly specialized environments. When healthy, they are home to unique and naturally highly productive ecosystems. Some benefits of healthy shorelands include the purification of water through a natural filtering process, the absorption of excess nutrients from the water, stabilization and protection of banks from erosion, provision of habitat and travel corridors for wildlife, and the support of fish spawning, rearing, and feeding habitats. www.livingbywater.ca/shorelands.pdf
While on the Withlacoochee, we should experience a lot of diversity: from dense hardwood forests with an understory of cabbage palm & saw palmetto to a low, flat swampland lined with cypress, gum, and maple trees adorned all over with airplants. Some websites cautioned that during dry seasons, paddlers may encounter log jams or hyacinth jams. We will also travel through hammocks of water weeds as well as highly landscaped domestic environments. All the diversity in vegetation is a reflection of the constantly changing terrain and the changing populations around the river.
One problem that native plant life encounters on the lower Withlacoochee (and all over) is the over-growth of algae in the water. Algae growth has exploded due to the excess of nutrients in the river. When algae becomes too dominant, it blocks sunlight for the native underwater plants (like freshwater seagrass) which are needed to maintain the wildlife of the river. Algae also lowers the oxygen level in the water. www.sjwmd.com
info on hygrophilia-a nasty water weed ( i think)
Florida 1960's: First recorded for Florida in 1965 along a roadside, north of Tampa (Les and Wunderlin 1981). 1970's: Next documented in1979 from canals in two new drainages 1) Able Canal (Les and Wunderlin 1981), draining the Caloosahatchee River in western Florida and 2) Miramar and City of Margate Canals (V. Vandiver, Univ of Florida, pers. comm.), part of the Everglades drainage in eastern Florida. 1980's:During the 1980's occurrence in Florida increased nearly 10-fold as populations were found at 29 new sites. Included were well known infestations at the Loxahatchee River, in 1986, and the Withlacoochee River in 1989. By 1989 the range of Hygrophila polysperma extended northward through central Florida to the Santa Fe River, Columbia County (FLDEP 1988-94). Also known was a disjunct westward location, along a roadside in Tallahassee, in the Florida Panhandle [Katherine M.
Gilbert s.n. (FLAS), 1988]. 1990's: By 1999 Hygrophila polysperma was known from at least 22 rivers/streams, 13 lakes, 2 ditches and 7 canal systems in Florida. This accounts for 20 counties and a total of 17 drainages in the state. More tolerant to the herbicides and grass carp used to control hydrilla, hygrophila is replacing hydrilla as the number one non-native aquatic weed in some southeast Florida canals (Duke et al. 2000).
nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.asp?speciesID=225
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Withlacoochee Hydrology
Most of the information I found for the hydrology of the Withlacoochee River Basin comes from this Army Corps of Engineers study performed in 2002.
You can find the ideas behind the study through it's main page here, or download the PDF file with all kinds of great information and maps here.
Drawing on this resource I've created a distilled powerpoint-like Flash presentation linked here.
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