As far as artwork goes, most of the last couple weeks have been taken up with memorial portraits of recently departed pets. That’s Aggie above and Otis below.

Yesterday I arrived at Tofte Lake, which is near the Canadian border in Minnesota. I came here a couple years ago to work on visuals for a dance piece called “Chicago’s Watershed” (which premiered at the Logan Center for the Arts last year.) Wendy Clinard needed another driver for the 10 hour ride up here. She’s working on another piece of choreography. My purpose here is to form the writing I’ve been doing over the last year into a book.

People come to places like this for solitude, to be able to concentrate on some art project, and also to commune with nature away from the city. That last thing is pretty much lost on me. I’ve never had much interest in nature. People usually laugh when I say that but I’m not joking entirely. I’ve lived in cities my whole life and all my frames of reference have to do with manmade, built environments. Looking at a bunch of trees is usually about like looking at wallpaper for me. It can be pretty but mostly it’s repetitive and endless. So I’m here for sensory deprivation. To concentrate on writing and not much else. So far I’ve managed a couple drawings inside our cabin. Don’t expect any bucolic forest or lake paintings out of this guy.

Do expect something resembling a book by the end of the week. Or something closer to one than I’ve got this morning.

Wish me luck.