some thank yous

I feel overwhelmed by the amount of kindness and generosity we have seen and felt and received on this trip so far. 

Thank you nyssa and roommates, thank you andrew and scott, climbers co-op, kyel and anna, sarah, don, julie, kristin, nick, joe, woody, marco, sarah and maupin, debby, melanie, shay and sarah, channing, brian, maria and farmers of cate hill, nice hairdresser who let me use her phone in Greensboro v.t., cynthia, rolf and morgen (pumpkin float hosts/singers/artist/historian/creative problem solving lock ninjas), tow truck guy who took us all the way to the co-op, marnie and claire and poncho, katie brown and the lofgrens, tattooed lady who listened to us busk and then asked if we "had everything we need", thank you free bread, $$ on the street, donut gift card lady. 

the world is wide and full of thoughtful and kind people eager to share and assist you on your way. 

what i've been seeing while i haven't been updating this blog.

hello friends, 

i apologize for being so out of touch. here are some drawings i've made of the things i've been seeing. they go backwards in time, so the first one is the most recent. 

right now we are in montreal. it's a really beautiful city. we are staying with some nice ladies we found on couchsurfing.com. last night they were telling us about how everything in their house, except the fold-out couch and the record player, came from scavenging in the garbage on the curbs of montreal. they know a self-proclaimed "pirate-scavenger" who showed them the tricks of the trade. in a nutshell: first you look at the bag. if it looks "unusual" then you kick the bag. if it sounds "promising" THEN you open the bag. their apartment is old and beautiful. you wouldn't believe the stuff people throw away! soft velvet upholstered chairs, a red glass star lamp that hangs, old maps of the world, dark wood tables and matching chairs. 

on wednesday we will head back to vermont to play at least one show, hopefully more will work out. 

more soon!

morgan. 

Yesterday getting through the border to Montreal was quite the ordeal. They searched the entire truck, asked us tons of questions and said in order for them to let us into Canada they needed proof that we really would leave after 3 days. We had to show them a Facebook event for a show we are playing in Hardwick, Vermont on the 25th before they'd believe us. It was stressful, even though I knew we had nothing to hide and they were just doing their jobs. After, when they'd let us through, I saw this great black bird of prey sitting in a dead corn field with it's wings outstretched facing the sun. 

stranger(s) on the train back from coney island. the original woman i was drawing got off the train before i was done...so i just kept going, adding on with the features of the next lady who sat down. 

more strangers on the trains in n.y.c. 

i really like drawing strangers. most people are very absorbed in their own thoughts/ music/iphone/newspaper/experience and do not notice when i draw them. sometimes people catch me and i feel bad; it's an invasion of privacy. i keep doing it though because i notice that after a while of drawing strangers i start to look at people differently in general. i feel less superficially judgmental and more interested in the shapes and lines their bodies make. everyone starts to look very beautiful and i feel more tender towards them. i feel like i recognize them. i know this is a one-sided feeling. 

lots of kinds of windows as seen on the above-ground train to coney island 

maren at st. dymphnas in the east village. conor oberst wrote a song about this bar on his last record "ruminations" and we just happened to be walking by so we stopped in. 

gravestone melange at the historic hughenot burying grounds in new palts, n.y. 

more graves at hughenot. 

at the grand rapids public library.

We've been in and around Grand Rapids for the last week and it has been a very nice sojourn! Maren's good friend Andrew is an exceptionally generous, kind and community-minded person. He has been putting us up and showing us around, getting us gigs and keeping us fed.

All the shows we have played here have been met with a lot of gratitude and affirmation and just sweet attentiveness. I've felt a marked decrease in stage-fright/performance anxiety, maybe because most every audience member is a stranger, maybe because I feel a kind of deepened relationship to the material we are playing, like I'm really getting to know our songs inside and out.

One show was a busking slot at the farmers market where we got lots of attention from babies and toddlers. Another was with Andrew and his wonderful fiddle-playing friend. We formed a band in a day, thanks very much to "the rise up singing songbook". We played inspirational background music for a ceremonial wheat planting work party put on by a "farm to alter-table" organization as an effort to get churches to think/care about where their communion bread comes from !! you really never know where you're going to end up, folks. All of the planters were extremely kind and grateful. They fed us lunch and then thanked/complemented us 'til we felt bashful and heart-warmed. 

It was unseasonably/unbearable hot in G.R. for the first several days we were here, so on Tuesday Andrew took us to Holland State Park to go swimming in Lake Michigan!! It was so dreamy to float in that big clear lake with a soft sandy bottom. I felt like I was suddenly on a tropical vacation. Very light, and buoyant, and restored. Plus there was lots of good people watching and I did some sneaky sketches of beach-goers.

We just returned to G.R. today from a trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes. Our legs are very sore from sand-hiking, but it is well worth the ache to be there; it feels like a desert world, very quiet and soft and deep. And after many ups and downs, seeing the blue lake-mirage just beyond the next dune, we finally made it.

I'm thinking about lots of things all the time, I realized that I feel sometimes brain-cramped like I did my first semester of college, when it was dawning on my just how much there is to know in the world, and how do you know what are the most important things to know?? what if what you know isn't actually real or right?? I'm thinking a lot about the possibly positive effects of public-crying on society, and the complexity of people, how easy it is to want to simplify them down for the sake of our own sanity and comfort, about versions of American history, specifically as told by (mis?)informational rest stop plaques. In short, I'm learning a lot, and I don't know what is going to happen next. 

hope all you readers are well! 

love,

morgan 

girl sitting at the shore of lake michigan. 

floppy loungers. 

here is a drawing of a guy sitting in front of me at the library. 

the "great dune" as we were coming back to the truck. 

some drawings from south dakota times last week.

bear butte sketch and south dakota observations from the car. 

bear butte is a sacred site to the cheyenne. the land around it is extremely flat, so it is very striking. 

i missed the exit for the black hills hwy. so we tried to cut through on "grey blanket rd" and meet up with it, but it became a sort of cow trail and then there was a fence. 

south dakota lady. 

Dead River Coffee Shop/travel angels are real - Marquette, Michigan

When we got to this cafe there weren't any open tables, but the barista said she would find a place for us. She asked some old men to budge over so we could join their table and we sat down a little shyly, coffees in hands. They were drinking coffee and playing cribbage, three of them. One mustachioed in grey, one with 1970s aviator style eyeglasses, one with a big belly and a red Santa nose. They were very delightful company and very interested in our travels and how we had come to Marquette. We chatted amiably about Bellingham weather and Marquette winters and how when they were kids here there were NO coffee shops: they went to diners and had coffee that was basically just water with chicory and cost 10 cents. Now they come here sometimes twice a day, even though the owner, Theo is a permanent curmudgeon who sometimes carries a squirt gun to reprimand misbehaving customers. They said the lake keeps them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. They said many of their friends have moved away because they couldn't find work in Marquette. This other overall-wearing gent called over "anyone know somebody who does good body work on the side?" And Santa Nose was like "what'd ya hit?" And Overalls said "someone hit me!" Then he got curious noticing we are not familiar faces and came to ask where we are from. When we said Bellingham, he said he has an old girlfriend who lives there and is one of his true loves. 

Now some have left and other old man characters have arrived to the table. They talk about all the different wars, a kind of friendly argument just for entertainment. 

Last night I got very tired and road-weary. I'm not sure exactly why, but I felt a pervasive sense of loneliness, disconnection and fear. I was sitting in the truck crying in the parking lot of the Marquette Co-Op when this tattooed guy with a camo baseball hat on poked his head around and waved at us. I did not feel like talking, but he was coming over so I rolled down the window. When he saw that I was crying and backed up a bit saying "Oh sorry! Bad time?" I said, "No, I am just crying."He and his girlfriend wanted to look at the canopy my dad helped us make. We got out and showed them the inside. They loved it and wanted to hear all about the process, having both lived in trucks before, travelling around like we are now. Maren said we were looking for a place to park the truck tonight, somewhere where we wouldn't be bothered. They said they knew of a great house up on the hill, a community space where they had both crashed last summer. They were so kind and sweet, they arrived at the exact perfect moment. They led us to the Marquette Climbers Coop, a cooperatively run house focused on sustainability and community. It has an open door policy for any traveler who finds their way there. When we arrived they were three hours into their "family meeting" where they go over all the nitty-gritty details involved in fixing leak roofs, installing bouldering walls inside, developing systems to catch grey water, taking groups of students climbing etc. The kind couple gave us a tour of the place and after the meeting was over we met the core inhabitants of the house who were all very welcoming and friendly. We hung out all together for a little bit and then went off for a walk since we'd been sitting in the truck driving most of the day.

It often seems like the world is not made for those who want to travel light, cheap, and spontaneously, those trying to skirt around the edges of things. I start to feel that everywhere is purposefully exorbitantly expensive and crowded and distrusting of strangers, but each time I have felt the most hopeless and disillusioned on this trip, we have come upon some welcoming oddball, some vagabonding person or people who affirm us in what we are doing. 

marquette climbers co-op. 

looking back to the beginning.

hello friends, 

maren and i have been travelling for just over a week now, though it feels much longer given all the miles we have covered. america, it turns out is a very large place. being in small bellingham, which has felt increasingly more crowded, i forgot this. i was in awe and overwhelm driving across montana and south dakota.

lots has happened, lots happens every single day! the days feel long when you wake up in one city and go to sleep in another. i write and draw everyday but do not have the time/interweb access to post very much. here is a story/image from the beginning of the trip in missoula. we stopped to visit a dear friend of maren's and play a show in her back yard. on the drive there, my truck (a.k.a "sharona") was feeling a little odd. the clutch was moving in sl0-m0, sticking to the floor of the truck after shifting. we took a little tour of missoula mechanic shops and found one willing to do it in a rush, in exchange for a song. they very sweetly invited all their mechanic guys to come in from the shop and listen to us play in their lobby. we played them "strange" by patsy cline. it was a somewhat surreal moment of connection amidst the stress of car troubles, specifically especially expensive ones. i appreciate the way music lends itself to these sort of encounters. 

they did a superfast great job and sharona is now running like a dream.

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"beverages" blind-line. i like drawing this way because it's very relaxing. often, the more i  practice drawing without looking at my paper, the object i draw comes out floppier, or disconnected from itself, but somehow with a truer more palpable quality than if i had been going spot on rendering. i'm not very good at that anyway. 

collection site.

hello friends,

i've decided to start a blog to hold my thoughts/stories/art while on the road. i'm sure there will be some posts related specifically to bad posture club, but mostly i am intending for this to be collection site for my own musings, daily drawings of seen things, and also for images of my slightly morbid but also tender preoccupation with making etchings from the text found on headstones. if you're interested in that kind of thing, then feel free to follow along. 

yours, 

morgan