Orange Crush

This, folks, is my only photo (taken this evening) from my trip to New York to see Cristo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates project in Central Park. It’s a swatch of the fabric specially woven for the project. I managed to snag one of the last of the 1 million of these that volunteers handed out, consolation prize for my malfunctioning camera I suppose. (I think it’s possessed by a malevolent alien. It only works when I’m inside my house – perhaps because here it can use my wireless router to download the latest sabotage instructions from the mother ship?) Fortunately there are tons of nice photos of The Gates all over the net, including Newsday.com (click on the photo gallery) and the NY Times Gates coverage.

But my favorite online site about The Gates is The Gates blog, the author of which hosted a little meetup this weekend that included me, Lorianne from Hoarded Ordinaries, and Dave from Via Negativa. Lorianne, who I’d already met at the Keene Pumpkin Festival (another extravaganza in orange, btw), came down from New Hampshire Friday night and we set off from here early Saturday morning for the big city. A mere three hours or so later, we arrived in Manhattan and were welcomed by our host with cups of fresh hot chai, and we met Dave and the friends he drove up with from Pennsylvania. Over a late breakfast of curried scrambled eggs and the bread Dave had baked, we picked up some of the loose threads from online conversations and inferred personalities and began weaving those into the immediacy of physically present human beings. Not that anyone was so vastly different from their online persona, but there’s always so much more color and resonance in person.

In the afternoon, we all wandered through the Gates, the fabric panels lit up by ample sun and fluttering in the brisk breezes. Some of my favorite views were of a couple of vertical orange sentries framed against the façade of the Dakota Beresford building and farther-off glimpses of sunlit orange looking like wildfires within the smoky-brown of the bare trees. If it hadn’t been so cold, we might have walked around and seen more, but we got a good taste of it – including a great view across Central Park from the Roof Garden at The Metropolitan Museum. The museum itself was mobbed, maybe because people were coming inside from the cold. It’ll be interesting to see how many people they figure came to be part of the whole experience over the 16 days of the event.

Many more fun things followed… great food, used-bookstore browsing (picked up this Eugenio Montejo book of poetry), bead store, video store (we rented Election), wine, talk, talk and more talk… I was exhausted! I still slept fitfully on the floor in my sleeping bag, but that’s not so different than at home lately. After a nice brunch this morning, we reluctantly headed home, tired but happy.

Update: Lorianne has posted her report, with great photos!
(Also thanks to Lorianne for determining that the building in question was the Beresford, not the Dakota.)

Update #2: The blog hall of mirrors continues - Dave has finally posted his report.

Comments

[Lorianne]

Hmmmm, I hadn't made the connection between orange pumpkins & orange gates...yes, surely something must be up with *that* (just as there's something surely up with your demon-possessed camera...)

[BethW]

Gosh, I would have liked to have experienced that with you guys (mainly I would just like to meet you all). Your piece of fabric reminded me that I have a fragment of fabric used by Christo in his Florida Keys project years ago, along with a signed poster. At the time I had a tv news clipping business and had donated news coverage video tapes to the project. The Christos were kind enough to send a letter, the poster and the fabric. (They're in the warehouse in North Carolina along with our other stuff!)Thanks for tapping that memory key!

[Natalie]

Me too, I'd like to have been there but thanks for the good report, Leslee. Sorry your camera sulked. Same thing happened to me with my Fuji - lens wouldn't retract. It was because of the battery though I'd recharged not long before. I was told that you have to let the batteries discharge completely before recharging. Maybe that would work?

[elck]

It was a pleasure to meet you, and and honor to host you! It has snowed this morning, and if I can drag my butt all the way over there (today is a holiday), I might get some interesting photos.

Marvellous weekend, I'm glad you were part of it.

[alyssa]

ahem... you came here, again, and i didn't see you? i saw liz (from the alien) and met kevin and jack... but not you. grrrrrrrr

[leslee]

Lorianne - Yes, I think we're going to need to make a road tript to the Orange Bowl or some nasturtium festival or something. Or we could switch colors?

Beth - I guess that's what those little swatches are for, souvenir, to remember. And it would have been fun to have you there!

Natalie - I'm using disposable batteries. It's possible I had a bad batch? I just put new ones in before I left. I took those out and put other ones in - this time, Duracell Ultra - and it worked, but I'll have to test it outdoors. This weekend it would retract the lens, but it just wouldn't take pictures. Grr.

Elck - The pleasure was all mine. Thanks again for your hospitality. Yes! Photos of the Gates in the snow!

Alyssa - I know, I know. This was kindof a group thing. But I'm realizing how short a drive it is to NY. I definitely want to go back - maybe we can plan something. Not sure I can do anything before I go to Mexico, but definitely when I get back! Have you gone to see the Gates?

[jon]

That looks really cool. Sad I won't be able to see it. Do you know what they will do with them after it's over?

I think this is a hint for you to dust off the 35mm.