self-resident

(both untitled) from the series Camp Home © kjm

I'm preparing for another trip to make pictures for the Camp Home series. The grant money I received has been waiting patiently, all my ducks are in a row, and I'm extremely excited to start shooting there again.

It's a very small town, Tulelake (the town name is different from that of the internment camp), and there's little, if anything, going on. That's fine, of course - I'm there to work. But there's also no internet access where I stay, and only spotty cellphone coverage. My last trip was only for a few nights, but this will likely be eight nights in all, and I'm a little worried about getting stir crazy.

So I've decided to treat my time there like a mini-residency. Only without other artists around. Just me. No big tables of communal food with painters pouring wine for poets. A self-residency. A quiet time to work and to hopefully reflect and read.

I'm bringing along some books which I think will help shape my thoughts on the project: Geography of Home by Akiko Busch, The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton, and lastly, my brother Kurt's dissertation, Vision, Space and the Politics of Homesickness. (Did I mention that I have the smallest brain in the family?)

Slightly complicating things, in a good way, is a plum editorial job which just popped up, to be shot in Seattle. I'll carve out a little time from Tulelake, but will likely now stay longer, so as not to cheat the project.