Day 15: Researching Away.

I am an artist.

For so many years I flailed around grabbing and using so many media that I never found my place. This is really funny because when I was in grad school I told one of my professors that I wanted to make folk art. But at the time I was so mad because of from where I came that I couldn't be true to myself. My work became esoteric, an abstraction of my truth. My thesis, "A simple treatise on the origins of Cracker Kung fu," should have been a clear indicator to me about where my roots lie. Silly me to have taken all of the time between then and now to realize that I was where I was supposed to be and doing the folkish art that I was. Well I get it now, thank you Universe.

So I'll be making folk art that can be played with. There will be all sorts of objects, like wooden puzzles or simple machines. And I can see myself building more complicated machines. And, of course, I'll be making dulcimers. I don't know if I'll ever not make objects other than dulcimers because I do like the other stuff. But I can see that there would be a time where I mainly focus on music machines.


So today--everyday for the last three years, really--I did some research. I'm still reading about the history of the dulcimer--which is pretty obscure considering it is one of the few instruments born in the USA. Its history can be reasonably tracked from European instruments and the travels of those people who brought them here. But considering the short amount of time our nation has been here it is amazing to me that the evidence of the mountain dulcimer's birth is long-buried in the Appalachian Mountains. Here is rundown of what I'm saying from Mel Bay.
But the research I'm doing today is on those who are building dulcimers. In a way, these persons are my competition--or will be. But that is not really what I'm doing. I'm looking at aesthetics. Not that I'm looking to copy a style of machine; I'm wedded and committed to the Sunhearth/Bear Meadow tradition. And these instruments are just pretty.

Bear Meadow instrument with Pegheds.

So I want to see how others are stretching the boundaries of the traditional dulcimer. Since the dulcimer is a folk instrument it only makes sense that "traditional dulcimer" has shifted over the years. And while I'm not looking to reproduce a Thomas of ole, I do want to embrace an older aesthetic. For example, my machines will not have any tuners other than traditional wood pegs or Pegheds. And mine will always be horizontal when the machine is laying on its back. I've come to this because of all of the research I'm doing while not in the shop working.

Of course I had to do something physical today. I do everyday. I don't know if I've always been this way, having to do something physical, but it seems to me I have. And the army certainly helped with this, as I had to do physical training (PT) everyday.

I remember when I got to my first and only permanent duty station, Ft. Lewis, WA. I was assigned to the processing company until I reached the 542nd Maintenance Company. We ran every day in the processing company, but they were just short jaunts. Once I reached the 542nd, though, the runs became long and more than I wanted.

As a welcome to the company my squad got me really drunk the first night. And on the second morning we were running in formation--for a long time--and I said fuck it, and I dropped out. I hid behind these bushes so that the rest of my company wouldn't see me (I was in the middle of the formation when we were running). I learned a couple of days later that I hid behind the bushes at the post commander's house. Oops.

But don't get me started with my fuck-ups from my service with the 5th Combat Engineers in Iraq. Oh boy.

Okay, get me started. So I was with the 5th in Iraq, and I went back to the 542nd after my deployment. I was done with the army by then, and I was waiting to get out--even though I had about a year left. We had a dress greens inspection, which means that you are supposed to be spit-and-polished ready. But I knew that it was a butter-bar lieutenant, the lowest ranking officer in the army, that was inspecting us. So I was disheveled, frumpy you might say. So this butter-bar gets to me and I see that he has only a service ribbon, which means he is brand new. And he sees that I have three rows of ribbons, including a SW Asia Campaign Ribbon with two Bronze Stars--which doesn't mean much to me, I assure you. So he sees where I've been and what I've done by my ribbons, and he sees how messed up my uniform is. And I see that he sees. But he's got to play the officer, and he starts to ask me questions, military questions that I should know. But for each question I answer with Sir, I don't know the answer to that question, Sir. Finally he gets fed up and says that I should fall the fuck out and find some answers. And I left the formation. The army was as done with me as I was with it.

Anyway, I think that I've always been physical. I remember running through the woods as a child, mostly naked and all of the way ferrel. I have no idea how I made it through childhood without losing a limb!

The bundles waiting for the trash man.

Gretchen has a lot of foliage in her yard, and some of it needs to go away. So today I bundled up a bunch of it--it has to be bundled in order for the trash man to take it. I got six stacks of stuff to go. There is more, but that will be for another day.

I had a great dinner after that. Barbecued chicken, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, and a pickle with some peppers. It was delicious, and I ate too much.

Then I sat out on the porch as it rained and did more research. I'm having a lot of fun learning what is possible, and I'm enjoying my time researching on the porch.