dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
13 September 2015 — Day 5Solo backpacking the length of Vermont on the Long Trail May that remain the most miserable night of my camping life. Because the TarpTent SUCKS in a 12-HOUR VERMONT RAIN. Because the rain comes down, hits the ground and bounces up and hits...
11 September 2015 — Day 3Solo backpacking the length of Vermont on the Long Trail Set my alarm for 5:45 (got up to pee only once — it was raining, but not too hard). Got up well before Justin, but he got up by the time I was finishing my breakfast. Hit the trail with...
Vermont's Long Trail: It was grueling. It was anxiety-riddled. It was way, way, way harder than I ever imagined. I'd give anything to go back and do it again. My goal was to solo backpack the 273 miles of Vermont's Long Trail. Though over the years I've shared some of...
pathways.... and waterways... and walkways .... we interrupt this summer to share meals… meditation… direction.... and glimpses of yesteryear.... ... to share the welcoming of shelter ..... ...
As I look out my window just now, I see nothing but a dark tangle of black lines, crisscrossing and knotting up with each other, their shapes carved out by the softest shade of morning, of first light. First this light was pale grey. Now at the base where earth turns...
Has it really been a month since I hiked off the trail? 'Seems impossible that one month ago today I was lying in a tent on a frosty morning deep in the northern Vermont woods 5 miles from Canada.... As I said, my thoughts these past four weeks...
Last year when I came crippled off my backpacking journey, I left the trail two weeks earlier than planned. The frugal thing to do would have been to change my travel plans and return promptly home to New Mexico. Fourteen days earlier and just five days into my Long...
Journal Entry ~ 8 September 2016 ~ evening ~ Day One Returning to a personally sacred landscape after a long hiatus is an extraordinary experience. In a way, it’s as though you never left. If you’re lucky and your sacred place has not been altered by...
“SPLAT” pause “SPLAT” pause “SPLAT” pause “SPLAT” ...was the sound as I emptied my PO box this afternoon, depositing most of its contents into the waste bin of recycled trees. Of the 4-inch stack of mail in my little locked cubbie-hole, the only thing worth saving was...
When I set out last year to walk across Vermont, one of my plans was to create a body of paintings based on my hike. They would be in the style of my “textual landscapes’ where I combine language (text) with semi-abstract landscape elements. The text might come from...