The on-again off-again nomadics theme on the blog has had some resonance over the past eight months or so. Now having been a season removed from this particular step along the way, I'd like to draw attention to a project initiated by an artist I met this summer. Entitled Unsettlement, Ashley Waldvogel Gaddy of the Savannah College of Art and Design spent her summer documenting the 'migratory inhabitants' of campground and RV parks up and down the eastern seaboard.
They are an interesting lot, having lived within such a community for several months, and a fascinating demographic to focus upon. I was stationary - doing a live/work exchange having just taken a job in the area - but my neighbors shifted daily, weekly, ranging from bare bones tenters to McMansion types on wheels. Then there were a number of folks like me whose spots were secured by dedicating a portion of the week to gardening, cleaning and generally maintaining this unique oceanfront campground and family homestead that produces its own vegetables and wool, and invites artists and craftspeople for weekly residencies and workshops for visitors at the passive solar studio on its grounds. For four months, I occupied a lovely and roomy corner space surrounded by groves of tall pines that kept it cool at all times and filtered the sunlight in just perfectly. My indoor/outdoor compound consisted of a then newly purchased, extremely high-mileage three-ton cargo van (my personal and business storage unit), a picnic table (al fresco cooking and dining), and the very efficient little 4x6' pop-up A-frame lent to me by the campground which was just long enough to sleep in and tall enough to stand at its peak (bedroom and additional storage). That little baby was a major source of intrigue for passers-by, leading to my self-proclaimed status as 'campground famous.'
