Scenic observations around my one acre: 2014 - 2019
Another Viewpoint of Reality
“If it is time for a new approach, for something truly different,
how about a change of scenery for this scenic designer, both in
methods and methodology? After all, how can I be sure I’m really
a cultural farmer if I’ve never ‘farmed’ any living landscape?”
INVENTORY OF LIFE: MY ONE ACRE
An ethnographer’s job is never truly complete; that being the job of closely observing and describing specific living cultures. By definition, my (auto)ethnographic projects are but a perspectivist’s rendering of life. Indeed, I alone made these little 250+ ‘backyard videos’, which you can do as well by taking the time to sit, listen watch and record. I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Translating one’s own ‘experience’ into words and ideas, however, is the most complicated part of (participant) observation studies. And when incorporating audio & video languages into this mix, a visual ethnographer’s task becomes a more formidable challenge yet. Luckily one project can only do so much. Please remember, this master guardener will always be a student first.
Unlike my earlier scenographic projects, or my later (C)ritical ethnographic projects; this website will not be to simply create faux, or to archive and analyze the mendacious media worlds closing in around us. Rather in this journal, I intend to analyze the natural world in and around my one acre, as I make this small attempt to protect and rebuild natural habitat. For it is one thing to simply say... “I love nature.” Yet it is quite another thing to attempt an explication of this Nature -- by video recording my deliberate mindfulness in it -- all while it disappears right before my eyes.
“Harm me not.” The contents herein are selected images and stories about what I’ve encountered around my one-acre property here in the Great White North. I began making these occasional recordings in the autumn of 2013. Collectively, they begin to compose an observational diary of my own ‘personal farming’, made richly manifest when one takes the time to listen, watch and study. My curiosity in sketching these stories is inspired by completing Northern Naturalist and Master Gardener certifications. I am quite certain that living here will be my final scenic design performance...
I hope I am up to the task.
