Inspired by Richard Long

http://www.richardlong.org/

Today I went to the Institute Woods for the first time to drift and tag. The Institute Woods is 550 acres of preserved space in New Jersey. It is not a park, but the Institute allows the public to use the space for recreation. There are numerous crisscrossing, winding trails which are almost completely unmarked (this posed a problem for me later)!

After about 30 minutes of drifting I stopped to alter and tag a part of my path. I created three "sculptures" from rocks, large pieces of fallen wood, and cocktail umbrellas that I had brought to help me tag. I had red, green and yellow umbrellas. The red ones I incorporated into the sculpture. Because the wood was damp and decomposing, it was easy to insert the umbrella ends into the wood, making it look as if these dead branches had sprouted red paper flowers or perhaps bright red fungi. The yellow umbrellas I stuck in the ground between the three sculptures and the green umbrellas I stuck in the ground leading up to the first sculpture and away from the last one. In this manner I created a sort of "traffic light" guide for anyone who might happen upon my work. The green umbrellas tell them to go, the red ones tell them to stop and examine the work and the yellow umbrellas tell them to move slowly so as not to miss the next one.







Since I had been truly drifting and since the trails were unmarked, once I was done with tagging and ready to make my way back out of the woods, I found that I had absolutely no idea which way to go. I ended up drifting for another hour and a half, trying to stumble upon the exit out of the woods. During this time I came upon a classic example of tagging, and decided to add my own tag to it:


Also, while I was lost I came upon a suspension bridge. It seemed fun until I was halfway across it and noticed that the cables were rather rusted and the wood planks were a bit rotten. I did get a nice picture of it with my poloroid camera though. I had brought a poloroid camera and a digital camera with me . I was hoping to document my work with the poloroids, but the camera's flash couldn't contend with the dimness of the woods. I did take a few poloroids though, and when I was finally back in the parking lot I posted one of them on the information bulletin, as a kind of hint.

I am looking forward to going back in perhaps a week to see how my work has been altered.