Under the Bed: Outside Notions of Antarctica

As someone who has always loved coming up with silly collaborative projects, I often find myself in the position of organizing something and having absolutely no idea who, if anyone, is going to play along and participate. There invariably comes a point at which I wonder why on earth I have once again decided to charge off to do something epic and time consuming that leaves me masochistically busy. But then that point is always followed by the part where people make incredible things, and community is built and fun is had, and I am left delighted and renewed by the whole undertaking.
 
Under the Bed took on a life of its own. A few months ago, I asked my artist friends to make art about their Outside Notions of Antarctica. Well. They did. And they spread the word. All told, I received work from over thirty artists (much more than that if you count the third grade and high school classes that sent submitted art, but for simplicity's sake I'm considering each class one very large person) hailing from California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New York, Alabama, Maryland and Massachusetts. This left me with the fantastic problem of having too much art to fit under my bed, particularly because some people-- ahem, my dad-- chose to completely ignore the size parameters I had set in my call of art.  Because I'd initially asked for tiny art so it would fit under my bed, I felt that it was important to honor the venue.

So I decided to bite the bullet and go through official channels, and I got permission to set up a BUNK bed in Gallagher's Pub, one of the two and a half* bars here on station. Things on station are incredibly hectic right now, as the mainbody crew is starting to go home, and the once-every-two-years resupply vessel is about to arrive. As such, rooms are jam packed and housing couldn't actually loan me an empty bed, so I used my own, and tracked down someone who happened to have an unoccupied bed in their room.

One of the nice things about doing this showing of Under the Bed as a formally recognized event was that I was given the help of the General Assistants (GA's) in setting up. The GA's have pretty much the best job on station; while their job is entry level and doesn't pay well at all, these guys get to go EVERYWHERE. As the title implies, they go wherever help is needed, and so they're always jetting off to field camps and hopping in helicopters to shovel snow and drive snowmobiles all over the continent. I am very, very jealous.

The GA's are my favorite group of people on station, probably because they are the ones who most remind me of the sort of people I am generally friends with back home. As a whole, they're an outdoorsy and gregarious bunch who are competent, down to earth and often hilarious. And I don't know if this just happens to be a particularly good year for GA's, but they are also quite easy on the eyes. Sometimes they rotate through the galley, and because I'm friends with them, they come work with me in my little tucked away Empire of Salad Land, and then the other cooks accuse me of stealing all the eye candy.

 

Anyways, this is my GA friend Buddy out monitoring fuel lines. This picture pretty much sums up how I think of the GA's: fly fishing, porn, and getting to do all sorts of random weird jobs around station. 

That was a bit of a random tangent wasn't it? Ok, onwards and upwards to Under the Bed. I did the best that I could to document, but the turnout for the show was absolutely ridiculous, and once things really got rolling, I had very little time to take pictures of anything.

I got off work on Thursday after working 9 days straight, gratefully grabbed 10 minutes to shower, and then rounded up my GA's, and set about taking apart my beds and moving them into the bar. 

A friend who is in charge of the laundry room** hooked me up with sheets to use for the gallery walls, and we strung bailing wire across the bed legs for hanging cables, and wove rope lights through the mattress webbing for a light source.

The Under the Bed Gallery. Looks all warm and inviting sitting there in the middle of the bar, doesn't it? 

Gallery sign. The selection of acrylics in the craft room down here was somewhat limited, so I ended up using some very non-Antarctic colors.

We had everything set up and ready to go right around 7pm, and people started trickling in at a little before 7:30.  

And then things got crazy. 

This is a portion of the line to get in. The wait to get in was well over an hour, and the line snaked all the way around the bar. I have no idea how many people came, but the bar was completely packed, and many people were unfortunately not able to make it under the bed to see the show before the bar closed. Which is really the best sort of problem to have with any sort of opening. 

All of the artists wanted their work to find homes down here in Antarctica, and I decided that the best way to make this happen was to give the art away to whoever wanted it the most. With this in mind, I whipped up a handy little form for people to fill out...

 

People did take me up on trying to bribe me with bourbon, so that also has something to do with why I didn't do the best job of remembering to take pictures as the night went on. 

 Free Art Forms (FAF's, because in Antarctica we make everything an acronym (IAWMEAA))

 Someone folded their form into a paper airplane, and it snowballed from there.

As people were waiting in line, many of them asked if the art was for sale, and I really enjoyed being able to say that it was all free. Creativity and commerce make for awkward bedfellows, and in a perfect world, art would always go to whoever is the most moved by it, not to whoever can afford it... 

Here is a random assortment of pictures of the inside of the gallery. It's mighty hard to photograph in such a crowded, tiny space, but I did the best I could. 

 Nudity is a fairly common occurrence down here in Antarctica, so this piece was quite popular.

The winning FAF.

 Kelly Owens, Seattle, WA

 

Rachel Rader, Seattle, WA

 

John Boylan, Seattle, WA

 Rebecca Reilly, Denver, CO

 

This piece by Bill Fahey was one of the crowd favorites. Many people argued passionately for why it should go to them, but there was a clear winner. My friends Matt and Baxter work out at the Pegasus runway, and they, quite frankly, have waaaayyyy too much free time out there. So naturally, they brought a dinosaur coloring book out there with them, and they started a wall of dinosaur drawings. Everyone pitches in, and the firefighters out there spend huge portions of their day coloring. I wanted to post a picture for you, but I don't have one... I'll track one down and post it later. Here are a few entertaining FAF's about this piece: 

"My mother doesn't believe in dinosaurs, she thinks they are a worldwide government conspiracy." Amazing.

 

This piece by Jed Dunkerley was also very popular, although some viewers were unsure if the artist is aware that polar bears do not live in Antarctica. The artist's bio did not help clarify this:

"I am an illustrator, collaborator, performer and high school art teacher in Seattle. I painted the scene with a herd of hundreds of polar bears roaming the ice shelf just like they did in real life Antarctica, before they were hunted to extinction by the Eskimos. I wanted to be as realistic as possible, so I showed them engaged in activities that polar bears engage in, like swimming, eating things with blood in them, and humping. I made this to raise awareness about the movement to reintroduce the polar bears to their native habitat." 

I tried to help with this situation by posting a photograph I happen to have of the artist wearing a "no polar bears in Antarctica shirt." Oddly, someone stole said photograph. 

 

Here are some FAF's about this piece: 

 

The piece is going up to the Arctic, where its new owner promises that she'll try to take a picture of it with a real live polar bear. 

 Another crowd favorite, by Jackie Margolis of Bethesda, MA

Sophie Yanow, Montreal, CA

Most people were pretty good about sending me tiny art, but as I mentioned earlier, my dad chose to completely ignore the fact that the gallery was going under a bed,*** and he sent me a large kinetic penguin sculpture. 

The artist's description of the piece: 

My real claim to any recognition in Antarctica is that I am Tessa's dad, but I am also currently a guest at the Centre for Environmental Biology at Lawrence Berkeley, helping with work on microbial ecology.
My artwork is a kinetic sculpture, the Penguilum, inspired by Tessa's comments about lack of penguins and an idle fascination with the work of Ernst Mach (1838-1916),  who came up with the pendulum wave idea.   While he made numerous contributions to science and philosophy, he is most famous for his work on shock waves and supersonic speeds which lead to the development of the Mach number, wherein Mach 1 describes speed at which flight becomes supersonic.  Obviously, penguins are not fast enough.

Many, many people wanted this one, but again there was a clear winner. This person first won me over by her decision to ignore the front of the form and write whatever she wanted on the back, and then I loved her argument:

You may have seen Karen Joyce in Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World." She is the woman who fits herself into the tiny orange bag. Anyways, she's the proud new owner of the penguilum.

I have many, many more pictures, but am going to call it quits for now as

1. this post is getting epically long

2. I LEAVE ANTARCTICA IN LESS THAN 3 DAYS!!!!! And I really, really, really need to pack. And find some way to come to terms with saying my goodbyes with this place. 

I imagine you'll be getting an introspective post about leavings and homecomings from me, but then again, maybe not; this whole year has seen me with zero time to really reflect before charging off to the next thing, and I'm not sure that's something that's going to change.

So I'll just end with a big thank you to: 

Claire Siepser Tuscaloosa, AL

Bill Fahey Seattle, WA
John Hulls Point Reyes, CA
Rachel Rader Seattle, WA
Jackie Margolis Bethesda, MD
Marie Gangon Seattle, WA
Anna McKee Seattle, WA
Martha Cederstrom Forest Knolls, CA
Sophia Larsen Forest Knolls, CA
The Wallabies Massachusetts
Annakalmia Traver Brooklyn, NY
Meghann Riepenhoff San Francisco, CA
Eric Carson Seattle, WA
Rebecca Reilly Denver, CO
Sarah Diehl Seattle, WA
Kelly Owens Seattle, WA
Nichole Rathburn Seattle, WA
Larry Cwik Portland, OR
Klara Glosova Seattle, WA
John Boylan Seattle, WA
Sophie Yanow Montreal, Canada

Jed Dunkerley Seattle, WA
Vivian Hua Portland, OR
Ellie Ray Portland, OR
Saskia Delores Seattle, WA
Jess Engle Leadville, CO
Theadora Tolkin Brooklyn, NY
Leah Faw Oakland, CA
Zach Gore Seattle, WA

And a few sneak preview shots of where I've been taking the art:

The Wallabies Newbury, Mass

 

Eric Carson Seattle, WA

 

Sarah Diehl Seattle, WA

The Wallabies Newbury, Mass

*there are two bars and one coffee house. The coffee house serves whiskey and wine, so it's sort of a bar, but generally more mellow. I have not seen people take their shirts off and dance on tables at the coffee house. Cannot say the same for Southern Exposure or Gallagher's.
**interesting Antarctic fact: due to a very dry climate and overtaxed dryers, we have frequent laundry room fires down here. We've had to evacuate the building because of them a few times.
***ever have those moments where you realize you're too much like your parents? Yeah... We both get projects lodged in our heads and ignore practical things that might impede doing them exactly as we want to

The ice shelf is indeed the ocean, and the joys of sleeping in a snow trench

 I took this picture as I was taking out the trash after a night of bartending. Still stops me in my tracks every time. You can see open water on the right side of the picture, compliments of the Russian icebreaker that's been milling about creating a path for the fuel tanker and resupply vessel. 

 This little guy (ok, he's really not that little, but the mountains make everything seem really small) has been doing circles for the past week or so breaking up the sea ice. While I've always known that I live on an island, there's an entirely different level of impact that occurs when you actually see a boat come in and turn your ice shelf into actual ocean.

It's been a busy past few weeks on my end. My time down here on the ice is coming to an end, and I've only got 16 days left. This is starting to slowly sink in, but I haven't had time to fully mull it over yet, and I probably won't be able to think about it until just before I leave because I'm deep in the throes of organizing things for the Under the Bed Gallery: Outside Notions of Antarctica show. The opening will be happening on Friday, February 9th from 7:30-10:30pm; feel free to hitch a ride on a C130 and come on down!

A huge thank you to everyone who sent me art: I received far too much to actually fit under my bed, which is a great problem to have. I've come up with a solution that I think will be entertaining for everyone, but more on that later...

 

A few weeks ago I got to go to Snow Survival School, AKA Happy Camper, AKA "that part in Encounters at the End of the World where everyone puts buckets on their heads." We learned how to make a quarry and use snow blocks to build wind walls, how to dig angled pits to anchor our tent stakes in the snow, and how to construct snow trenches. 

Building our camp kitchen. 

 Tents for those folks who weren't really excited about spending a few extra hours digging a big hole to sleep in. 

Speaking of tents, I'm going to digress for a minute to share with you some of my opinions about outdoor gear. My friend Matt Romero (who also keeps a blog and is better than I am about posting lots of pictures) has hiked the PCT a few times, and generally has some pretty strong opinions about ultralight backpacking. Matt is one of my closest friends down here, and a while back we had a serious test of our friendship because we ended up discussing gear. It turns out we disagree. Strongly. 

Matt gave a clinic on ultralight gear a few weeks ago, and he invited me to offer my opinions as a counterpoint to his talk. This was when I was still putting all my drawing time towards my travelogue, but ultralight disciples are such a pet peeve of mine that I decided I would somehow find time to contribute something. I drew these at the bar after perhaps a few too many whiskey gingers, so they're... uh... maybe a little harsh in their condemnation. But I stand behind the sentiments. 

 

Ok, back to Happy Camper: I opted to dig a snow trench. My room at McMurdo has four people in it, and there is just enough room for our beds. You can't actually walk from one end of the room to the other if any of our wardrobe doors are open, and one of my roommates is a Midrat (works night shift), so there is always someone asleep such that you can't turn the lights on. It's been fine, because I'm almost never in my room, but at times it does get old having my room be a tiny enclosed space that I must always navigate via headlamp. My trench was the first time I'd had any sort of space that was truly my own, and I relished the privacy of it. I pretended that I was Badger from The Wind in the Willows, and I really didn't want to come out. 

 

Taking a digging break. 

The view from inside before I put my roof (a sled balanced on two bamboo poles, covered in snow bricks) on. It was probably about 9pm when I took this picture. So many months of full sunlight... My circadian rhythms are all shot. Good thing there's no time to sleep anyways!

The next day we got to learn how to operate an old Vietnam era field radio. 

 

Yay for getting to actually play outside! I'm going to wrap up this post for now, but I'll give you a sneak peek of the topic I'll be sharing in my next post: 

This is the fuel tanker than just showed up last week. It's bringing us six million gallons of fuel, and they let me take a tour.... 

Travelogue, snow mobiling, radio show

Ok, dear readers-- as promised, my travelogue is out of the way, and I now can get back to keeping you at least somewhat abreast of life down here in the very deep South. Here are a few of the images from my travelogue, offered mostly so you can see that I do actually have a decent justification for not posting lately:

All told, I made about 20 illustrations, and it made me realize that I want to make more. Like.... maybe a hundred more. I might be working on this one for a while.

But back to the matter at hand. Antarctica! I figure it's probably due time for a bit of a geography lesson. This place is disorienting for a number of reasons. The most obvious is the inherent ridiculousness of getting to physically be on this continent, but McMurdo is also extremely confusing in terms of its orientation with the rest of Antarctica. So here is Antarctica. You can see McMurdo written in red near the bottom:

And here is the where I live. McMurdo is located on Ross Island, a 950 square mile island formed by four volcanoes:

Living on an island is very confusing, because much of the "land" that I can see (and sometimes ride snowmobiles over!) is, in fact, frozen ocean, and when I look off at distant volcanoes, I am actually looking AWAY from the actual land mass of the continent.

Ross Island is effectively connected to the rest of the continent by means of a permanent ice sheet, but by technical definition, McMurdo is not actually located on the Antarctic continent. This amuses me to no end, because it means that all the people who have come down here simply to check Antarctica off their list of traveling to all seven continents are not actually accomplishing their goal.

I have to say that I have been somewhat surprised by how many people down here seem to be in it just to say that they've been, rather than to actually engage with this place. Going into this, I had this expectation that the people who come down to work in Antarctica would all be inquisitive adventurers, drawn by the romance of the frozen frontier and the allure of a landscape that is one of the last true bastions of wildness. Documentaries like Encounters at the End of the World perpetuate this notion, and it's been a bit disillusioning to instead discover that most people come down here and do everything in their power to distract themselves from thinking about where they are.

I worry sometimes that I'm becoming a terrible elitist, because I so often find myself wandering around looking at other people and wondering, "You're here, but what are you getting out of it?"

Anyways, back to my initial discussion of Antarctic geography. I drew a comic to provide a basic overview of Antarctica and McMurdo's location on the continent:

You know what I've found to be the best method for getting a handle on the geography down here? Riding a snowmobile across the ice shelf, because then you don't care in the slightest which cardinal direction you're facing. The powers that be occasionally issue morale trips, which, because nothing down here can be called by a normal descriptive title, are called Boondoggles. A while back I got to participate in a Boondoggle called Room With a View, which involves snowmobiling across the frozen Ross Sea.

We started off by piling into a Pisten Bully, one of the many silly looking vehicles down here. Check out the fantastic 80's-fabulous font and color choice on the vehicle name. We keep it classy in Antarctica. Wish I'd taken a picture of the interior seat upholstery...

We then made our way to our faithful steeds. 

 And drove off into the distance. I don't know about everyone else, but I was totally living out some sort of post-apocalyptic desert (because Antarctica is technically a desert, after all) fantasy in my head. 

 We stopped for lunch at the base of Mount Erebus. And because a huge part of the Antarctic experience involves wearing not nearly enough clothes for the climate (you don't need to wear pants if you're only dashing 20 yards between the station's two bars, right?), it seemed like the right thing to do to strip down to bunny boots and underwear and frolick merrily off into the distance. By which I mean the flag line, because we are expressly forbidden to ever cross flags due to the dangers of crevasse fields.

On the way back we worked to flag the route, which was ridiculously fun. We loaded up our snowmobiles with flags, and took turns leapfrogging and driving them into the ground. I appropriately amended my post apocalyptic desert fantasy to include jousting.

 So. Much. Fun. My morale was definitely boosted by the end of the trip. 

I've mentioned at various points that I've been doing a radio show down here, and I figure it's high time I elaborate on this, as it's more or less the highlight of my week.

Every week I pick a theme (a la This American Life), and then spend more time than I have delving through the beautiful chaos of the vinyl room. M first show was songs about home. Yes, it has taken me three months to get around to posting a playlist, but better late than never, right? Hopefully I'll start getting these up more regularly. Themes since then have included science, poor life decisions, sleep, drinking, sundays and more...

Poor Life Decisions: HOME
1. Lou Reed- Talk a Walk on the Wild Side
2. Emerson Lake and Palmer- Show Me the Way to Go Home

3. Eric Clapton- Swing Low Sweet Chariot

4. John Denver- Take Me Home Country Roads

5. Willie Nelson- Graceland

6. Paul Simon- Slip Sliding Away

7. Peter Paul and Mary- Leaving on a Jet Plane

8. Genesis- Home by the Sea

9. Animals- We Gotta Get Out of this Place

10. Simon and Garfunkel- Homeward Bound

11. Cher- Bang Bang 

12. James Taylor- Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream

13. Peter Shilling- Space Oddity

14. Joni Mitchell- Cactus Tree

15. Otis Redding- Sitting By the Dock of the Bay

16. The Nashville Guitars at Home- The Green Green Grass of Home (can't find it online)

17. Jo and Broadway- Anyplace I Hang My Hat is Home

I couldn't find the version I played, but here's Sammy Davis singing it. 

18. Andrews Sisters- Don’t Fence Me In