Monthly Statement:
August 2006
This proved to be another busy month for me. My wife and I moved from Arizona to Ohio and as a result I was able to gather dust from only one, but very fitting, location.

Ohio greeted us with the snug air of August humidity and the color green. I obtained multiple dust bunnies from our empty moving truck after unloading all of our accumulations into our new place. Fortunately, we were able to position the back of our truck in a way so that the ramp extended perfectly to the entrance of our new home. We had rented moving blankets to protect favorite belongings and labored to remove these scratchy fabrics into a pile just outside the truck. The emptier the truck became the more dust and lint clumps I noticed and realized each were cast with a pale blue hue generated by the shifting and shaking of our stuff under all the moving blankets. This dust is the dust of transport, of moving, where one might usually imagine the accumulation of dust as a result of stasis. More importantly, this dust records the efforts of my wife and I to protect our accumulations so that we might enjoy them equally as much in this new place as we did in our old place.  

Process: I plan to acquire dust in two ways. Initially, I will ask for permission to sweep a chosen site and document the process. If permission is not granted or if I find myself in a place that seems to be an interesting opportunity for gathering dust, I will then obtain my accumulate in a covert fashion. This means I will inconspicuously search for dust clumps on the spot and document the site, rather than the process.

I will be gathering dust from two different places a month as my contribution to the Accumulation Project. From each bag of dust I obtain I’ll manipulate the dust bunny into different shapes and make a series of photograms on cyanotype paper. As the dust bunny assumes this new pictorial form, it takes of the appearance of a cloud in a deep blue sky and subtly forms a connection between a nuisance remainder of human existence and the ephemeral behavior of the weather overhead. Each series of “clouds” will be placed into a book that I’ve assembled specifically for that place.

Contact: sekondsight@yahoo.com