My contribution to @Platea's participatory art Project VIII: Tree Blogging

(Source Material found at plateastweets.blogspot.com)

Title: John Muir, and then something happened

(Installation + Text)

by: Maritza Ruiz-Kim

materials: inkjet on vellum & canvas, wood veneer, gloss on vellum, silver thread

Muir Site photos taken from area local to his historical home, Martinez, CA; also Muir Woods, Mill Valley, CA

Sunday, Jan 9:

• saw source material

Monday, Jan 10:

• decide to visit Muir Historical Home for source photographs.

• Find out it's closed till Wed. Decide to photograph John Muir Med Ctr on Tues.

Tuesday, Jan 11:

• friend calls, needs ride to John Muir Med Ctr to fetch her car which had been left at ER, so she can drive to join her husband & daughter at a different hospital, where her daughter (who has leukemia) was transferred by ambulance.

• I take photos after I drop her off.

Wednesday, Jan 12:

• Decide to visit Muir Historical Home since it's open now.

• Arrive there at 9am, find out it opens at 10am.

• Receive call from another friend about urgent medical things happening to her.

• Decide against waiting for historical home to open, have coffee with friend instead, before her hospital appointment. We discuss John Muir to distract ourselves.

• I learn even more about Muir, his eccentricities. How one time he slipped & nearly died, but as he slipped down the mountain, he laughed & laughed. We decide that would indeed be a good way to finish out life.

• We talk about how he loved his wife, how they loved each other. About how, when he was home, if he was gone from nature for too long, he'd stop functioning, stop writing, and she'd force him to return to nature. He'd leave for months at a time & then return.

• We leave the coffee shop; she goes to hospital while I go back to take more photos.

• No time to enter the historical home as I'd hoped. Decide I probably had pics from a previous visit that I could use.

• Then I visit area sites named after Muir instead.

• Random music plays in car from iPod. Lyrics like "I'm sorry so sorry, I'm sorry it's like this, I'm sorry so sorry, I'm sorry we do this." And

• I think about how much John Muir would've hated all this suburban sprawl development, these places bearing his name....

• More lyrics "O mothers let's go down, Let's go down, don't you want to go down, Come on mothers let's go down, Down in the river to pray." And

• I think about John Muir's deeply religious roots and then his nature redemption.

• And more lyrics "Some glad morning when this life is o'er, I'll fly away; To a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away." And I'm thinking, I don't want to think about this. But then "Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I'll fly away" and okay, and then "Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away; To a land where joy shall never end, I'll fly away" and there's some relief.

• I take more photos, know I'm running short on time. Remember about photos taken at a visit to Muir Woods, decide to see if I can use those.

• Finish taking pictures. Pick up son from preschool.

• Get phone call about how friend's urgent medical appointment went, how it looks like bad news is imminent. We make plans for lunch.

• I get sitter for son. I drive to lunch with my friends, (and cry and stop).

• We have lunch. We laugh.

• I go home and put son down for nap.

• I make art.

• Here it is.
  
  

  [need to find the archived photos! sorry…. ~mrk 2022]

Thursday, Jan 13: (UPDATE) We find out my friend has breast cancer.