Post Burning Man 2016 - General

driving in the stake and the di vinci themed man this year

 Oh boy. Another year of Burning Man is done.... kinda (the giant dusty pile of things in my living room begs to differ), but it was a pretty wonderful year. I only got a hold of a ticket about 3 weeks before the event, but everything else fell nicely into place afterward, including heading out with an Early Arrival pass for the first time to help build the camp I've been staying with the past 4 years. This was it's own challenge, but also it's own reward and I made it through all 11 days on playa and had some awesome conversations, experiences, hugs and smiles with all sorts of people.

Medusa was back for another year! Building in progress before the event started

Getting in early was rough for me at times. We went in on the Thursday before the event, but still had longish lines and once we arrived, there was literally nothing on our site, which means building shade in the sun. I think I drank something like 4-5 40 ounce bottles of water that first day (bringing along an insulated water bottle that can hold ice for 24 hours was pretty awesome though... def recommend this going forward, even if it's just use around camp) and I neglected eating as much as I should have at first and felt a little sick until I figured that out. Biking at night was a bit more calm & seeing the art and everything being built was pretty awesome. I was especially inspired seeing people paint around center camp & look forward to trying to do that one year.

bilding the geodesic dome at HellFire Society in the Fire Village

While building up our camp, I picked up the directions for the geodesic dome kit someone had a purchased and took charge for a while, trying to figure out if we had the parts and could build the dome. (One of the secrets and awesome & sometimes terrible things about Burning Man is that people don't really ask you for your credentials/proof of experience in the past..... this opens up many opportunities to do new things as well as to fail, but you know, sometimes you have to try.) It took some creativity (one of our camp mates ended up on her stilts helping to assemble the dome), but the end result was an awesome place where people could sit and sleep while people were able to do their various flow-arts and spinning in the middle of the room, which was pretty perfect for the large number of fire spinners in my camp and naps and comfort throughout the day and night

my art in center camp!

This year I showed some of my photos shot during 2015 in Center Camp again, although this time I did photo transfers onto fabric, which is what I had originally wanted to do last year. One of the most awesome things about this experience happened a couple days later. Because I was on the playa for so long this year, I decided to prioritize some visits to "self care" type camps and gave myself some mini spa experiences on the playa including getting my hair washed, getting a facial and a shower & another venture to the Healing Foot Wash camp. As I sat down at this camp, I realized this was the same camp I visited last year to get my feet washed, and specifically, I saw this same woman that I shot a photo of last year. I sat there awkwardly until she came over looking for the next person to get washed. I couldn't hold it back and told her there was a photo of her in center camp. She looked at me, completely surprised, but not because she was finding out it was there.... because a friend of hers had literally told her 1 minute earlier that he saw a photo of her in center camp. I suppose that is Burning Man for you...??!? I don't even think I talked to her last year (yes she gave me retroactive permission... I was much better about asking this year), yet I feel like the photo so perfectly reflected my interactions and experiences with her this year. Seriously, she is literally a ball of loving, caring energy that was insanely infectious. Later on, I stopped by at the end of the event and gifted the photo to her, which felt so fantastic as well.

I feel like I talked way more to random people this year and felt more comfortable about it, which I really am quite happy about & I had so many fun experiences & of course biked so much until my body told me to stop (this is SUCH AN AWESOME FEELING for me to just bike as hard and wherever my body tells me to, not when I'm too stressed & can't deal anymore... I imagine it's kinda what birds feel like when you see them riding the wind currents and just hovering and going around in circles.) I really had great interactions with so many, learned many new things, had tons of wonderful warm hugs and just generally had a pretty great time.



I had a bit of a panic a few times... like when I realized I only had brought along 1 single disposable mask for the week during a pretty bad dust storm on the night that the gates officially opened (which sent me to my tent to sew a fabric dust mask out of a bunch of layers of fabric and other random crap I had brought along, which turned out surprisingly well & got compliments & made me realize how I really do use crafting as stress relief at times.) At another point before the event officially started, my pedals started acting really weird on my bike. After finding Sweaty Betty's Bike Repair and hanging out there for a couple of hours & getting to talk with a guy from South Africa, I had my bike bottom bracket bearings replaced and my burn was literally saved (a million thanks to you!!!!!!!!!) I also managed to loose my pocket knife (don't keep your knife on your pocket, if you are me.), which rendered some of my produce difficult to consume since I can't really bite into apples & things like that after breaking my front teeth a few years ago :( (on the other hand, I had the realization that fresh eggs that have never been washed don't need to be refrigerated, so I had fresh eggs this year! Joy!)

I met someone working with the porto potties and learned a bunch about that process. I learned how to make soap and got some wonderful handmade soap that was made especially to wash away playa dust. I stared into the eyes of a woman I had never spoken to before and had to comfort her as she began crying and I reflectively cried and held her. I ate maple taffy candy off of trays of snow late at night with Canadians. I learned how the Pinhole Project does their thing (unfortunately, I was never able to make it out to shoot with them, although I did help shoot test strips at their camp.) I talked with a camp mate about the joy we both get out of making our own clothes (and I don't know if I would have ever guessed we would have that discussion, which is also awesome in itself.) I sat in a 747 cockpit. I met Halcyon for the first time while biking around (I wish I could meet more people while randomly biking....) I learned how to give a facial massage. I was heckled while playing flaming skeeball and failed horribly before getting the ball into the hole that caused the largest mass of fire burst and was cheered on by random onlookers. I was so overcome by the beauty of the sky that I grabbed my camera and ran away from camp to go take photos. I filled almost my entire 16GB memory card and used almost all the film I took along in my Holgas & fish eye camera & I asked many random people to take photos (it was like something switched in me and suddenly I wasn't nearly afraid about doing this as I had been in the past.  Please contact me unboredhands@gmail.com if you see yourself in a photo, I would really love to share!!!!!!) I ate way too many freshly made french fries and snow cones at the Contraptionists camp (although I also got to pedal to shave some of the ice, which I actually enjoyed!) I saw tons of wonderful art and surreal juxtapositions and funny experiences. One of my camp mates made me burst into tearful laughter many times at his comment about making DiVinci proud (in fact, I'm crying now again at how funny the moment was...) I was told multiple times that people felt immense love from me, which is kinda cool when people are picking that up. I wrote notes to the families of people killed in the Orlando shooting and a crazy postcard to someone that I randomly selected from an address list at the BRC post office. I sipped on many delicious and unique homebrewed beers/wines/ciders at the Homebrew 4A Homebrew camp. I cooked a bit for others (in retrospect, I wish I would have done this way more & shared more meals with people!!!) I saw all sorts of giant, beautiful animal sculptures as well as had a mosquito land on my paintbrush to frantically suck up water and fed a moth drops of water on my fingertip. I love that I had a chance to meet and interact with such a large variety of people and being able to enjoy those experiences.


Whew.  Just another year at Burning Man....

during one of the many classes held at Hellfire Society at the Fire Village this year

Le Attrata.... this art piece (there were 2 other moths as well) was so awesome at day and night. The moths
were beautifully pieced together and shot out all sorts of crazy flames, fire and pops at night time.
Nevermind the moths being attracted to flames, sometimes they are the flames...

during the Wednesday Fire Spinning contest at Hellfire Society

temple! Supposedly some of David Bowie's ashes were also placed in the temple. There's a large number of
Bernie supporters at Burning Man (not that surprising...)

Art I dropped off at Anti-M's home for wayward art. Did you rehome one of them?