WITHIN CARTOGRAPHIES / CARTOGRAPHIES WITHIN
2021, AUSTIN, TX + VIRTUAL
As Austin-based arts nonprofit Pastiche House’s June Artist of the Month, I created an interactive watercolor journey whereby every few days a piece of the journey was be revealed to the Pastiche House community throughout the month of June. The journey ended on June 25th in a virtual Summer Showcase where we together viewed a collaborative video interpretation by photographer Aaron Bernard. This took the community thorough the last leg of the journey through enchanted lands together.
During 2020, I traveled +20k miles across the continental US creating over 300 landscape studies in watercolor, metalwork, poetry, and fiber. I pulled from these visual artifacts to create four unique landscapes. I also accompanied the piece with poetry. The video draws directly from original images from ‘Within Cartographies / Cartographies Within’.
Video by: Aaron Bernard
Poetry by: Kacie Lyn Martinez
Voice by: Kacie Lyn Martinez
Music (from 0:43-3:23) by: Kacie Lyn Martinez
POETRY FROM THE PIECE
-
I can’t quite name the beginning.
Yet this pilgrimage
I unknowingly embarked on
Started as jaunts toward ever lingering interests
Until the whispers of my soul formed something of a tune
A melody I could embody
that quieted this brain
And culture along with it.
And to you: outstretched landscape
A promise of communion
And so we begin.
-
My cosmic rhythm was on a different frequency than the frenetic energy of the nature tourist, because
Nature had been courting me.
Cooing and waving and encouraging me onward.
I knew the baptism of a hike.
I craved it.
-
How quickly the desert changed my constitution,
I found a new claustrophobia in the woods, a deepening yearning for the horizon.
So much metaphysically fertile here, so much possible, I realized how profound the journey I’m on actually is.
Breathing for perhaps the first time, I accept the silky embrace of vastness
In the same current,
I experience the daze of letting go to what you never imagine possible of letting go
-
The open path
A time of day dreaming
Of calling
Of loosening
Of restoring
Of flowing
el río dentro
If there’s magic it’s inside,
It’s in the water
And that’s when I realize
Every day has been a journey
leading me home.