Hi Perry,
Amen to your thoughts.
Trying to get my family off grid.
Teen son a I are moving off this May. Have had place for going on 6 yrs. Now is the time to go.
Shack, well, going to garden this summer and try to do some fiber arts to sell. But elec fence to keep critters out will take major effort.
Good luck
Calle and the gang
From: Perry Way <perryway@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:28:33 -0700
To: <papercreters@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [papercreters] My vision
I don't know exactly where the best place to start is, but I'm going to temporarily turn off my story telling mode and try to deliver just basic meat and potatoes.
Having ripened to 45 years old and unhappy with being a slave for the man, I'm now quickly deriving a plan to fit my goal of becoming independent. THIS YEAR.
Now, that's kind of a steep curve. Here I am at ground zero. Realize that I realize that bit. But I need to go independent and quickly, or I'm going to start collapsing and letting go, and that's just not good. So, for the past umpteen years I've had this desire to <fill in the blanks> on my own land in the wilderness. Build my house, grow my own food, live off the grid, etc. For over 25 years I've slaved for the man to make that happen but funny thing is I'm not any closer to accomplishing that than I was after 9/11 when I sold my property in Texas to move back to California.
I used to think I would be a programmer until the day I die but at this point due to various factors I'm ready to toss that aside. I am tired of the business end of software. Even though I write business software, the business end of it is highly stressful and has taken it's toll on me. I want to be an artist. Professionally. I have the skills and I have been devoted to the photography for quite some time and now I'm ready with a faith in <my own> God, some resources, some money (not much), and hopefully some friends along the way to leave California to find my heaven elsewhere. I've been studying San Luis Valley (which is southern Colorado and northern New Mexico) for quite some time. And I've been also looking at the Demming NM area as well. Both areas being located overtop large aquifers that are said to be extremely abundant and dependable.
This year, certain things happened at my work that made me want to either take an elephant gun to my head in a mercy killing, or to escape the slavery prison. You would not believe what I have to put up with at my work. It has completely zapped me of all energy to strive hard at work any longer. So, it has to be soon because I'm not really much for mediocrity. I gravitate towards greatness and if I can't throw that kind of effort into my work then I have to find my escape hatch and get on with part II of my life.
So I've been working on my photography with great energy. Hoping to get together enough material that I can sell prints as I travel. But now I've shared my thoughts with some people and one of them has become a muse for me and you all know her too. Judith. hehe. :) Anyway, as I shared my idea with Judith, her comments made me think about things and a larger idea started to take form and at this point I am really thinking this will work. But getting from point zero to point A is the first step and I'm working on fashioning that to be real.
So I'll back up briefly before continuing. As an artist I would like to have a studio. As a photographer, an analog photographer, and exploring all the old world photographic techniques I think that studio needs to be large so I can do very large wall size gum bichromate prints. That requires quite a bit of space actually. And then after I make them, I need to display them and sell them. So I need a gallery too. Now the musings began, and where things are now is this...
It is no longer just a goal or thing for one person, myself. It is now larger than me. It is several artists, living together, sharing the same gallery, sharing in the efforts to build more space, etc... It is the "Analog Institute". Just a name I am tagging it for now to embody the whole idea. The whole idea is galleries, workshops, and artists living in their own self made community living off the grid and being fairly well self sufficient on site (growing our own food, etc). The idea is that the gallery will be made from recycled materials, mostly papercrete, but other recycled materials will be utilized and it will be built as a sculpture. This has been done elsewhere throughout the world, even in big brother socialist countries where you need permission to do anything in life. A building that's a sculpture should be allowed to be built without plans and specs so long as it is up to code. It will start small but over time I expect it would be quite a sizeable building. Maybe it will be a snake coiled up with arch tops to papercrete walls and like the Guggenheim museum intended that the person walk the whole spiral to view all the art. Then after getting to the center, this is where the head of the snake elevates above or perhaps the tail and its an arch back to the beginning. Tour over. This kind of gallery could be done in segments at different times, as funds and resources and time permit. And over time, more artists join the institute. And when they join, they pay some $'s for the membership, its not much, and for that they get the right to build their own papercrete dwelling and studio and all of us will help them in that process. Over time, the site chosen will have scattered papercrete buildings all over the place each one completely unique and very artistic and also important, done by recycling materials.
So I haven't worked out all the details yet but one of my ideas to the Analog Institute would be to have a building that looks like a nest with an egg in it. And the egg could be a geodesic dome. And that is what got me triggered to write this tonight because of Spaceman's dome and the recent discussion.
I've shared my vision with a few people. I think I have a friend interested in joining me at this point. The details to that are kind of fleshing out. And I'm excited. :)
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