All Is Well in Guatemala

I am delighted to report that my luggage arrived intact, my health is good, and on New Year's Eve Day I found some quetzales. They were hiding at a bank machine in a mall in Zone 4 of Guatemala City. Today I am visiting the Modern Art museum here. Starting tomorrow I plan to spend a few days in Antigua, after which I will head to the north of the country, to El Petén. This is the general area I found myself most drawn to when reading about Guatemala. Then a wise and beloved teacher, Eve Soldinger, urged me to spend time there, which affirms my sense of things. I have a digital camera now, so I will post photos soon.

¡Buenos dias de Guatemala!

It's my first time in Guatemala. Things are great here! Nevermind that there is a cash shortage so I have yet to see Quetzales, my bag was last seen in the front luggage room in Los Angeles, and last night I ate two bowls of delicious sopa de tortilla which, who knew, had cream in it and I'm lactose intolerant... People are kind, the weather is fantastic, and I get to rest after busy holidays in the USA. I seem to get more sleep in other countries than I can manage in my homeland. Happy New Year to people celebrating the calendar that puts us in 2007 just about now.

Concept, Design, and Status (+paper v2.5)

The first public version of The Water Project paper is now available for download as a pdf file [TheWaterProject.v2.5.pdf].

This paper, entitled The Water Project: Concept, Design, and Status, provides an overview of the project along with the project philosophy, objectives, development phases, participant roles, countries identified for the project, appproaches, funding, recent supporters, advisors, current status, art and artists, and a biography of me.

Feedback is welcome. Please send it to the email address is contained within the document. Thank you!

Ramya's Family (+photos)

These five photos taken by Terry Berger early in my stay in Sathyamangalam show my dear friends Ramya and her sister, Yamini, along with their mother, Sumathi. This is the day they tried to teach me south Indian cooking. Missing from the photos are Ramya's wonderful Daddy Prakash & Uncle Mohan. You'll see the kitchen and main hall of Terry's apartment, which was my home base for a couple of months.

I am back in the USA now, integrating the new and the longstanding: friends, ideas, directions; reflecting on my journey; planning next steps.

Suddenly ideas explored at CIIS are hot again, such as ontology and epistemology... What is real? How do we know what we know? It is glaringly obvious after a trip abroad that societal realities are largely constructed, and therefore shifting realities involves reconstruction. What might that look like?

Up next: I intend to post here soon a draft version of a concept paper I'm working on for the water project.

Current Intrigues

I am entering my final week of this Indian trip. I have a lot of plans, including one more visit to see Santhan the scultor, and one more visit to the hills. Kodaikanal is a possibility even though there is a high likelihood of rain. That's just the way it is this season in this part of the world.

There are some things related to the Water Project that I am keeping an eye on. Oxford Brookes University in England has a "social sculpture" program. You can get a good sense of the program by reading about Shelley Sacks, with whom I have been corresponding.

I heard about this school through a listserve from the Community Arts Network, "promoting information exchange, research and critical dialogue within the field of community-based art." This is an amazing resource.

I am also getting to know the Green Museum, run by Sam Bower, whom I had the pleasure of lunching with in California before I came to India. This is an exciting, inspiring environmental art website.