The traveling eye 8: Fool's gold

"The eye has to travel."
          Diana Vreeland

The eye has to travel, away from technology.
Away from phones and keyboards and roads and rush.

To find a century-old claim where someone else's technology still litters the land.

Where someone else probably lost their nerve.
More than once.

Where someone else had their tenacity tested.

Their wits frayed.
Their foolishness exposed.

The eye has to travel in order to understand the rush of a frenzied search. 
To know the echo of a pick on a mountain,
the breaking apart and boring into,
the flying shards and gasping certainty 

(recognizing that the certainty of some is far more certain than the certainty of others, 
and weighs more, too)

so that when you make that descent,
that return to your life, your pace, your much more realistic personal goals,

you will remember to retain the fever. 

Because it is this fever, this tenacity, this wit, this foolishness, this nerve,
this ring of metal against stone,
this willingness to bear the weight

this ... certainty

that will ultimately drive the work.

Culross Mine, Prince William Sound, Alaska, May 2015.

Detail images from the solo show "Reliquary," June 5-30, 2015, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, Alaska. 
Art photography: Brian Adams

PS. The rusty dock bollards used in the first piece shown in this post did NOT come from this mine, they were found on a beach in 2014; we didn't disturb any of the old equipment ... ok, we sat in some of it. The slimy sack of rocks, however, was taken on this day and is sitting in my garage because those rocks are clearly "full of silver. And gold. And probably rubies and diamonds. And sapphires, too. And they're probably worth about a hundred dollars! And Mom! I can make you a necklace!"


So, if this was mildly interesting and you still have a full cup of tea, you might want to read some other Traveling Eye posts. They have their very own category over there on the side bar because hey, my eye travels and yours should, too.

Let's be clear though:
​wandering eye -- no,
traveling eye-- yes.

I'm just saying.