In the last few weeks, I worked myself silly finishing the sculpture. Christina worked herself silly project-managing the frieze (part of the sculpture), as well as packing up our apartment and handling all the "get out of Germany paperwork." Various other people put in long hours on other elements, notably Guy Hatzvi, Jascha and Anka from KAOS, and Chris Iwasjuta from MotionLabs. Amihay Gonen came through at the end with the lighting design.
I could not have completed this project without the help of all of you mentioned above (and Cedar Goebel too). Thank you so much.
In particular, my amazing wife and partner Christina devoted herself to this project as if it were her own. I especially thank you, my love.
Last Sunday we installed the sculpture at KAOS. (I thought it would take 4 hours and then everyone who showed up for the party would stand around looking at it, but instead we got a late start and it took 9 hours and and so everyone who showed up for the party stood around watching us assemble it!) Then on Monday we disassembled it and finished up the staging of everything that was going into the container, then on Tuesday we shoved it all into a shipping container. Then we went back to BBK and cleaned up my space. What a huge amount of work!
When I was still at the stage of proposing this concept to Burning Man, I had hoped it would be funded in part because I wanted for us to have the experience of building something in a "foreign" place. I wanted to understand how to nail down a workspace, how to purchase materials, how to establish networks and work with new people, harnessing new resources and skills unavailable in New Mexico. Thanks largely to BBK and KAOS, and the good people at both those places, we did in fact have that experience. And, all the challenges of something like this notwithstanding, it went fairly smoothly. Thank you, Berlin.
A week before the deadline, we also squeezed in a family trip to the Greek island of Lesbos for my brother Cles's wedding, where we all got to finally meet Beowulf, the newest member of the family. That was a nice respite.
I managed to get through this job with only one injury, and it wasn't a particularly bad one. I teased you with the promise of pictures, so here they are...
I've frankly been too busy lately to have much in the way of the "idle philosophical thoughts" that I like to sprinkle into my blog. Suffice to say that Christina and I are both experiencing a mixture of anxiety and excitement about coming home. It's a thick emotional soup involving ingredients such as trepidation about the political environment in the US, concerns about the suitability of urban vs. rural living conditions for each of us, anticipation of seeing old friends, sadness at leaving new friends, parental concerns about Kodiak's well-being through all of it, etc., etc., etc.
In 12 days we leave Berlin. Then it's a week in Sweden (just outside of Stockholm), 2 days in Reykjavik (Iceland is the most perfect place in the world, in case you did not know), and then back to the USA.
Who knows, this might be my last blog post in Europe. Or maybe not. If I have something to say, you will hear from me again.
It occurs to me that I do have hundreds of photos from these last two years... many of which are worthy of posting. I suppose I could do a photo-wrap-up post or two...
Anyway, seeya!
