Thursday, July 23, 2009

Yurt in LA





After 9 days of traveling; From Tijuana I drove to San Fransico and from there with a camper across Nevada, Utah & Arizona. A distance like from Stockholm to Napoli and back, but with only a few villages in between.
Grumpy europeans like to say americans don't know what happens outside of their country and have no clue about the rest of the world. True or not; traveling across the overwhelming american landscape, it is quite refreshing and revealing for a euromind like mine; how Americans see things. Big off course.
But the bigness of the landscape is not man made. The wide perspective is a optimistic view. It is not romantic at all.
There is a lot of wilderness in this country. This wilderness means real danger.
Cellphones don't work in the dessert, for 4 days my cellphone didn't recieved any signal. This may sound ironic and silly; But when you see a sign ;next gas station 187 miles (250km). You better make a U-turn and fill up your tank. Something we europeans have no clue about. Holland is off course the contra-pole of the US landscape. 100% man made; No accidents, no danger, no problem.
I still need some time to digest all these landscapes.

And that's what I am doing now in a Yurt in LA.
I am staying in a yurt in the very mexican neighborehood Lincoln Heights. My friends have a house with a wonderful garden,yuccas, grapefruittrees, many pepertree's.
(these a californian peper tree's; it's not normal peper, but looks and smells like red peper ).
It's a small paradise, like there are so many in LA but you will only see them if you know people. Amazing view over the downtown area, and a small modern yurt. (If you don't know people here; it's difficult, not to say hostile)

I've stayed in a yurt in Holland before; but now it is strange to stay in one, and looking at the sealing and realize how much it looks like my piece in Tijuana;
Normally the inspiration comes before, not after.
How do you call that? When you (an artist) sees all kind of things that reminds you of something you've made.