Time operates strangely here--alternatively slowing down and speeding up, traveling backwards and forwards in a dynamic animation of the present. It is hard to believe that we have now been in residency at the Montalvo Arts Center for most of July. We are just finishing up a busy and revelatory month. Taking inspiration from the bees at work on the hilly slopes outside our door, we have been mining Montalvo as a place of intrigue and insight. As we work, our website is evolving as a repository for documentation and reflection, a place holder and archive for our investigations in the area--revealing puzzle pieces of natural, social and cultural ecologies we are finding. We are coming upon rich layers of history--scrambling and scratching the surface--but uncovering compelling stories and tributaries of inquiry.

Engaging the strategy of expeditionary play and mapping to propel investigation, we began by indulging personal interests and following our curiosity. We've been exploring Montalvo’s history, landscape, arboretum, Italianate gardens, library, forest paths, geologic formations and nearby limestone outcroppings, museums, bookstores, neighborhoods and more. In dialogue with people and place, listening, exchanging ideas, and conducting interviews, we have gathered artifacts, reading and research materials to take back to our studio for further study. We are grateful for the wide-ranging spirit of openness, generosity and enthusiasm for conversation and possibility that we have tapped into here. We are excited to dive in deeper during the next two months of our residency in 2015 and look forward to returning in January.

Emerging highlights and themes from our research include

generative tensions between public and private, as well as domestic, wild and managed landcapes
points of contact, intersections and interruptions of nature, culture, technology