Back in my hometown of Bellingham, for the first annual Noisey Waters Mural festival. Three days to meet new friends, and paint in the sun. I have never officially participated in a mural festival before, this was a fun new experience and a great opportunity to meet painters from near and far. So very interesting to see how each artist goes about creating large scale works.
The landscape of art in the northwest is complicated, and all that complication sits on the truth that this land is stolen. I am an adopted killer whale, with my Tlingit family we create to heal, we create together to teach each other, we sing and dance to heal our traditions, we connect with our ancestors through this practice. I am finding new life in learning through this, I am reckoning with my white self as I have been adopted and welcomed into indigenous culture. I am living a conflict, and it’s quite wild just as it should be.
As a celebration of my fortieth year I was invited by two friends to check out a very special city in Chile named Valparaiso. Selected as a UNESCO world heritage site for the role graffiti, street art and murals has played in recent and past revolutions. I truly appreciate the chance to get outside of my comfort zone, being so far from home and wrapped in Chilean cultural richness. Finding a pace to fit in amongst all the creativity took a few days to make itself clear to us. Once we had our plan the community welcomed us. Learning language in a methodical way, my friends and I spent all possible time painting in the streets. Connecting with and making new friends happens naturally when you are the entertainment in real time. Living amongst a people and culture that values public art is a shock to the sences coming from the limitations of the US.
I returned to Leadville again this year to spend September at Artville. This time my intention was to do some good solid thinking, and walk the Colorado Trail as much as could be accomplished given how my body coped with the task. Walking from Copper Mountain to Cottonwood Pass, approximately 90 miles, over the course of nine days, with a total ascent of 16,700 ft, and descent of 13,800 ft, was as much as I could handle. I was accompanied and guided by my friend and experienced through hiker Groucho, and the dog Bo Jackson. Along the walk there were many moments of peace, beauty, extremes, time in a geologic sense, stars, and the ache of my IT bands which I learned I need to stretch out quite a lot more if I’m going to go on longer walks like this in the future. I have known for some time that I very much love walking, and I am slowly learning that I very much like walking long trails in nature. As always the tiny community of Leadville is a joy in its weird beauty, the more time I spend there the more I feel a part of the community, and I’m thankful for this.
In between walking on the CT and resting, I had the opportunity to paint a mural at the Leadville Library with my walking companion Groucho. We chose an apt quote from Groucho Marx, “Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend, inside of a dog it’s too dark to read”, it’s always an honor to leave art works in locations far from one’s usual stomping grounds.
I always try to do a few drawings of the places I find myself at, here is a drawing of the main street in Leadville.
Photos Austin Wilson
